Twist and Shout

I am scared and confused. I woke up this morning and apparently I'd been tossing and turning uncomfortably in my sleep. This is what my bed looked like.


This alone isn't that confusing. Sure it looks like a twisted cocoon or hammock that is really uncomfortable. My back can attest to how uncomfortable it was. But upon closer inspection check out my ipod...now it gets weird.



Okay, how the hell did I manage to twist the ipod around until it was backwards in its case? Is that even possible to do without using my fingers? Somehow by thrashing and twisting and turning and writhing I accomplished something wholly unnatural. I have removed my ipod from its clearly possessed case, and will not return it until my ipod, case, and house are all properly exorcised.

Maltese Nerd

Adam Savage might have just become my favorite nerd out there. Of course Mythbusters has been one of my favorite shows for a while...

This is what happens when nerddom goes uncured, and monetary success enables it. And it is amazing.



Hmm, why does youtube no longer fit in my blog? I may have to change my layout to accommodate or something...

SCIENCE!

I somehow think that this video would prove more educational than many of the ones that I was forced to watch in my chemistry class. I had to watch this one with some crazy old guy in a scooter thing...the way he spoke it sounded like he was in someway involved with the Manhattan Project, but he didn't quite seem THAT old...

Anyhow, they were laughably bad, just him scootering around his lab playing with some weird wind up toys explaining how they were analogues for something or other...

This wins though.



It's great the way the Hydrogen bonds in the correct position on the Carbon, and the way water and lead are dancing together throughout the video: c-c-c-c-c-c-COMBO!

Who throws a shoe?

Dubya ducks shoe

On the one hand I find it hilarious, the least of what I feel our oh-so-esteemed president deserves for the clusterfuck that is Iraq is a couple of shoes hurled in his general direction.

On the other, despite my general hatred and disgust with the man, I think he dealt with it pretty spot on.

"Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers.

"It's a way for people to draw attention. I don't know what the guy's cause is. But one thing is for certain. He caused you to ask me a question about it. I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."

I understand that this was probably intended with a bit more vitriol than the dirty bird here in the states (given the cultural ramifications of showing someone the sole of your shoe), but the general concept is true. The man flipped W the bird, so to speak. And you know, the guy probably deserves a slap on the wrist fine (public disorder kind of a deal), or at least in the U.S. I have no idea how the Iraqi government plans to deal with this...

But speaking as an American good on him. Good on W for acknowledging how the process of voicing dissent works without resorting to "with us or against us" rhetoric.

On the other hand fuck W for ramming through all of these midnight executive orders. Watering down the status of endangered species to the point of near meaninglessness? Power plants next to parks (although that has been removed from the agenda), etc. etc. I know every president goes on an orgy of signing orders, executive orders, and pardons at the end of a lame duck term. I also know that executive orders are totally constitutional, and most of the time are just the general workings of making the executive branch function (and on rare occasions can be extraordinary like executive order 8802 or 9981, or truly terrible like executive order 9066).

So there you have it: A rare kudos for W. Another in a long line of "fuck yous" directed at him as well. A laugh and tip of the cap the the bottom of a shoe. A praise of and swipe at FDR. Truman just got a tip of the cap, I'm not feeling balanced enough to go find something to yell at him about. Oh. I know. How about not having a middle name, just a middle letter. "S" Not S. It wasn't short for anything, just "S" So screw you Harry Truman and your two name one letter shenanigans.

Whoops

Oh dear.

That's trouble with a "T" and twelve zeros after it.


...and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool. With 12 "o's" in it. So I guess pooooooooooool.

My god, it's full of stars...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias

Hubble Deep Field



Seeing the work of the Hubble is on one hand breathtaking, inspiring, and awesome. I use awesome in the way the word was intended to be used, not the way the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles taught me to use it. But at the same time the vast beauty of the universe makes me realize how insignificant I am, how meaningless my accomplishments. On one hand it makes me want to build giant edifices to scream my name to the future and at the same time tell me how pointless it is.

My god the Universe is beautiful. Vast. Cold. Uncaring. But beautiful.

When I say this, I don't mean in a sort of dominatrix "I want to hurt you" sort of uncaring. I mean more of a Suicide Girl kind of casual disinterest, an actual lack of care whether you approve or disapprove...and at the same time not particularly interested in whether or not she approves of you. She could take you or leave you, if you thrive that's okay, if you don't...no big deal. Damn, the Universe is starting to turn me on.

This:






Is kinda like this:



I'm sure you see the resemblance.

As an FYI: it's hard to find a semi-safe for work image at SG.

Baseball

I have healed. At least well enough that I can talk about baseball without feeling the pit of my stomach lurch like a car in the Tower of Terror.

So the British are claiming that a bit of writing by Jane Austin indicates that they were playing baseball before the Americans. I don't really care one way or the other, but it does explain this one passage that always bothered me a bit:

It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should - what the-?! SAFE? holy fuck! Are you fucking blind ump?

This revelation about the origins of baseball certainly brings this into a new light, as well as add some "between the lines" information about the author.

Obligatory Political Moment

I'm not going to spend time talking about my political leanings or try to use tarot cards to try to foretell the future.

I'll begin with the right, because I'm right handed:

I was honestly moved my McCain's concession speech last night. It was clear, it was concise...and it wasn't a mouth breathing fear mongering tirade. Where was this man the last months of the campaign? I can only guess that he was convinced that he had to go Rove to win the election. He would have to court the hardcore conservative votes, turn them out in massive numbers, and try to paint Obama as a terrorist socialist... Clearly it didn't work, and I'm not entirely sure his heart was in it. He was hurt when his seven minutes of hate speeches were compared to the rallies in the south during the Civil Rights era...and he never really recovered. But here, at the end, he finally resembled the man from 2000 people I know were hoping for:



As for Obama, what can I say that hasn't been said? Yes, I was inspired, I have hope...and I really hope that his victory marks an end to the murky era of Clintonian back room deals and tyrannical reign of the elite council. Will it? I don't know. I am disheartened by the resounding defeats of gay rights...perhaps in an ironic moment the black community which Obama inspired to vote in record numbers were responsible for defeating prop8 in Cali. (they broke nearly 70-30 against it). Oh well, I'm still...optimmistic? My eyes aren't clouded by unrealistic expectations, but I am excited that this could lead to a new method. Not the best cut of his speech...but who cares.



Oh! And the youth vote...so far it looks like the youth vote increased its overall share of the general vote from 17 to 18%. That doesn't seem much, until you figure that every voting class increased in numbers this year, and the youth vote still gained a percentage point above that increase. Still showing a 33% turnout versus a 51% turnout of older voters...which is sad, but better than it's been before.

If I were a henchman...

One of the best renditions of Gustav Holst's Mars: Bringer of War that I've heard/seen to date. Is there anything the Venture Bros can't do?

Dadadada da da-da-da! dadadada da da-da-da DADADADA DA DA-DA-DA!




If I were a costumed villain, I'd totally sing that while suiting up. Of course I wouldn't live with my mom...and I have my own car. But other than that spot on. Oh if you want context here you go.

Here are the crime rates for the US over time. You can see that the early 80s saw a drop in crime (due to economic prosperity with the trials and tribulations of the 70's, oil embargo, etc coming to a close) until the rise of the crack epidemic. And then, something miraculous happens. Video games come out and crime rates drop! Holy crap on a stick batman, correlation equals causation!

Good enough for the MSM right?

Okay, not really good enough for me either. Again, the mid 90s saw the US come out of a recession, economy booms (leading to beautification, increased social spending, etc) and the crime rates fall. However, it is a nice graph to fling about internets arguments whenever people yammer on and on about video games making children beat gerbils to death with hammers, or whatever is the story of the day.

Happy Birthday

So NASA turned 50 the other day. I wonder how one would classify their life? Early peakers? We've not really come that far from JFK's decree to put a man on the moon by the time the decade was out. Now, well, we're not on the moon anymore. Hubble just blew up. And our space shuttle is about to be retired without any replacement to be seen.

So I'm thinking NASA is that high school football player who won State, married his cheerleader girlfriend, and now is doing...well not so much "doing" as "existing." Al Bundy.

Hooray! Well here's to you NASA. How 'bout living up to some of that early promise; fixing Hubble, getting some more telescopes up there and getting back on track for Mars.

*Oh Spirit and Opportunity. I can't forget those. They're tremendous successes, one of which is getting ready to leave it's crater home and set out across the Martian wilderness. I guess they're the motorcycle NASA bought to try to get past their midlife crisis.

Snips 'n Snails

Ah baseball.

The Universal sign for choking:





I kid because I love. No not really; I don't like the Mets very much and it was great seeing them choke away their playoff chances two years running.





On the other hand congrats to the Brewers...however ESPN had this disturbing image gracing their coverage of the Brew Crew beating out the Mets (by defeating the Cub Scrubs this Sunday). I give you Prince Fielder in:

Brewkake:


Seriously? This is the best image they could come up with? That's just nasty. I'd like to think that some editor somewhere along the line caught it, they're not incompetent, right?

The downside of my optimism and faith in the intelligence of my fellow humans is that it means that an editor saw it, recognized it as looking disturbingly like a money shot and published it anyways. Probably a bitter Mets fan. (East Coast bias in MY sports reporting?) Nevermind, my faith would be restored because that's pretty funny. The only thing that could have made the image any funnier is if they had paired it with an image from the Phillies celebration.





Which I will proceed to do:

I hate you all: Have a present

Not much really going on intellectually, scientifically at the moment in my life. So I guess this is failing in that regards. I have a couple of weeks left before I plunge into the world of graduate education, so I'm blowing my time (between figuring out loans, living arrangements and all that) with playing with my new kittens and the internets.

Speaking of the internets I found something. Something terrible. Enjoy. It's stuck in my head so I figured I'd inflict it upon all of you. Think of me as your own ear worm Typhoid Marcus.



Hooray for the Finns!
(Song: Ievan Polkka. Group: Loituma)
Original Live Performance vid that caught fire on the internet and created the demand for this official/polished vid

***EDIT***

Okay, I admit it. I kind of wussed out on my initial post here, what is the point of all this if I don't at least try?

This song actually is a lot cooler than it seems to us non-Finnish speakers. While it's a traditional style of song, this song actually dates back to the 1600's (with the lyrics being "written" (or more likely codified) in the 1930's) it has a lot in common with jazz here in the states. The initial spout of lyrics, while sounding like gibberish, is in fact Finnish. However the fourth "verse" (so to speak) actually is gibberish (it's the part that begins "Yatta ta ya dibby daba di." In the "music video" it is in fact the 2nd verse sung). It's just gibberish word-ish sounds, more in common with scat (think Ella Fitzgerald) than what we traditionally think of as folk or polka.

Of course most of this is lost to us non-Finnish speakers but if you read the lyrics you can sort of figure out when the singers are scatting and when they're actually singing. Combine the foreign language and sweet glottal stops and you have a really spiffy sound. So this group actually really has their shit together when they're all scatting in unison (as the whole point of this is to just "go with it" and thus the "words" will vary from performance to performance). Also you'll see that they have mainly one vocalist who does the improv. So sue me, I enjoy figuring out the subtelties on random things. I hope this satisfies your brain itch.

The lyrics, and my above comments, are using the original live performance for reference.

Lyrics:
Nuapurista kuulu se polokan tahti
jalakani pohjii kutkutti.
Ievan äiti se tyttöösä vahti
vaan kyllähän Ieva sen jutkutti,
sillä ei meitä silloin kiellot haittaa
kun myö tanssimme laiasta laitaan.
Salivili hipput tupput täppyt
äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Ievan suu oli vehnäsellä
ko immeiset onnee toevotti.
Peä oli märkänä jokaisella
ja viulu se vinku ja voevotti.
Ei tätä poikoo märkyys haittaa
sillon ko laskoo laiasta laitaan.
Salivili hipput.

Ievan äiti se kammarissa
virsiä veisata huijjuutti,
kun tämä poika naapurissa
ämmän tyttöä nuijjuutti.
Eikä tätä poikoo ämmät haittaa
sillon ko laskoo laiasta laitaan.
Salivili.

Siellä oli lystiä soiton jäläkeen
sain minä kerran sytkyyttee.
Kottiin ko mäntii ni ämmä se riitelj
ja Ieva jo alako nyyhkyytteek.
Minä sanon Ievalle mitäpä se haittaa
laskemma vielähi laiasta laitaa.
Salivili.

Muorille sanon jotta tukkee suusi
en ruppee sun terveyttäs takkoomaa.
Terveenä peäset ku korjoot luusi
ja määt siitä murjuus makkoomaa.
Ei tätä poikoo hellyys haittaa
ko akkoja huhkii laiasta laitaan.
Salivili.

Sen minä sanon jotta purra pittää
ei mua niin voan nielasta.
Suat männä ite vaikka lännestä ittään
vaan minä en luovu Ievasta,
sillä ei tätä poikoo kainous haittaa
sillon ko tanssii laiasta laitaan.

Soma

so·ma
n. pl. so·ma·ta (-mə-tə) or so·mas

1. The entire body of an organism, exclusive of the germ cells.
2. See cell body.
3. The body of an individual as contrasted with the mind or psyche.

Every couple of months I get on a Smashing Pumpkins kick, usually listening to Siamese Dream (although at times it can be other albums). This time it's definitely Siamese Dream, and specifically (if you hadn't already guessed) the song Soma is what's driving it. God damn is it amazing.

The other day we had to knock out 80 shovel tests at Wildcat, so I tossed on my headphones, grabbed a shovel and screen and no partner (a shoveling partner at best speeds things up only marginally, and at worst slow you down considerably, either due to gabbing as with Ben or in the case of our new students the pace they can screen (although they're doing great, it's just a matter of time and practice until they're as fast as Ben or myself)). In the morning I decided to go with something with no words and a nice beat to work to, settled on Juno Reactor. It worked pretty well and I got 5 done, not a world record pace...and a tad below what I was doing in CRM, but with being out of shovel test shape and taking a little more time screening, not too bad.

In the afternoon I could feel some food coma setting in, so decided I needed something more active and flipped over to Smashing Pumpkins. I positively kicked ass in the afternoon, even though it was the shorter part of the day, I got 7 shovel tests done. I just demolished them. I'm sure I was a pretty odd image, head bobbing, body swaying, rocking out the shovel and screen. But that archaeology story is really neither here nor there. I guess the only way to describe how the music touched me that afternoon is "I rocked the fuck out."

It's strange the way our minds are wired...it was hotter in the afternoon, I was more tired, but certain buttons in my brain were pressed and my mood skyrocketed and I was spurred to greater feats of physicality. Which actually wasn't my intention by beginning this post with the definition of Soma...but I guess that it's apt. My physical body was the same, in fact worse off most likely. The only difference was the music I had on...and how it affected my brain and in return my body.

Which reminds me, I read "The Mozart Effect" back in High School...in recollection it was probably a pseudoscientific crap-fest. I should go back and re-read it now that my brain has been trained to look through the bullshit and determine what merit, if any, the studies linking music to health have.

But yes, Soma, Siamese Dream. I'm sure many of you I've told before, but if 1) I haven't or 2) you ignored me (bastards) go get it. Listen to the whole album, in my opinion the best of Smashing Pumpkins (my favorite of all those "Alternative Rock" bands of the halcyon days of my youth).

Internet dependency

So I used to think that I was utterly, horribly, and irreversibly addicted to the internets.

Now I know I am.

Okay, I lie...it just seemed a far more dramatic statement to make. In fact I've adjusted fairly well to my generally internet-less existence. I wasn't sure I'd make it, but here I am. Am I just older, and hence not so tech-addled? Perhaps working 10 hours a day has just left me generally too tired to even want to go out after work...much less spend 4 bucks on a smoothie so I can justify stealing internet from the coffee shop.

Either way I haven't been hooked into the internet so much...and thus have less fodder to fill this space with. Oops...sentence ending with "with." "...less fodder with which to fill this space," just seems pretentious though. I heard that they've confirmed that the Mars lander landed in some water ice (it sublimed over the course of a couple days of course) and that the soil would support earth life. So that's pretty cool.

The thing I miss most about not having the internet (or tv for that matter) is that now I'm totally cut off from my Cubs. I know you were all hoping I'd say "my ability to waste hours of time writing in this blog to provide you with 5 minutes of enjoyment," but I'm not that cool, and far more selfish than that. They're still in first place however, so I'm happy.

Oh the other thing I miss is being able to play TF2, or most of my steam games. Apparently I was in the middle of updating portal, and the HL2 episodes last time I was online...and as they're in the process of installing/downloading I can't play them until I finish (and the coffee connection is too slow to make that practical). I pounded through Medieval Total War 2 yesterday on an unexpected day off, which was cool if depressing to have spent so much time in a row. Played Mass Effect through the first couple weeks here as well. What a sweet game. It went too quick in my opinion (by the time I realized it was winding down and I should explore the side quests I was to the point when you couldn't deviate from the main plot anymore). And yes...the hot lesbian human-alien sex is, well, hot. (Well assuming you create an attractive human character to play; if you create a fugly one who do you have to blame?)

Okay so that tangent brought me to something I can actually rap about for a bit. When creating a character what sort does on create? There are 3 categories as near as I can tell.

1) You recreate yourself. Who better to save the universe than...well... me? The answer is "no one." That's how badass I am.
2) Perfect you. As a male this would be a ruggedly handsome, uber powerful able to rip dobermans in half but still able to take the time to pet a kitty sort. The Barbarian class if you will.
3) Hot chick. With this category you well...create a hot chick character. (For you ladies I guess you can swap the genders of 2 and 3)

I'm a 1 or 3 person, but I'm usually more inclined towards the third option; and it's not just because I'm a perv. Okay, I guess it kind of is, but if I'm going to stare at someone's ass for 90 hours of game play, personally, I'd like it to be an attractive ass. And for me that means female. I'm not trying to be sketchy or anything, but I'm a bigger fan of the female form than the male. I don't pick them in order to stare at a hot computer generated image for hours on end (I'm not that sad and desperate thank you very much) but so long as I'm already going to be staring at it...yeah.

Additionally it probably started back with Street Fighter 2, or whichever button mashing fighter you preferred. The female characters were small, light, and fast as hell. Those characterize 1) me and 2) my general style of game play. I've never been much of a tank, and in the halcyon days of my youth the lighter characters were females. Again the fact that they were easier on the eye didn't hurt either for this 12 year old boy.

I'm not saying that any of you guys out there who pick option 2 are gay...all I'm saying is that you might prefer to have sex with men...thats all. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Glitch in the Matrix

Well it sounds better than the truth: I just didn't have the time, luxury of space, or the internet connection to continue my updating on that schedule. The truth is I'm not certain what sort of schedule I'll be able to maintain now even...my new apartment (and yes, I'm moved into my own place; I'll be receiving a roomie in a couple days) doesn't have the good fortune of any neighbors leaking internet. I'll only be there for another 6 weeks or so...seems silly to call the cable company just for a month and a half of convenience. Luckily there is a coffee shop down the street that makes a mean smoothie and has free internet. So here I am, sitting in a comfy chair slurping down a strawberry-banana smoothie. Mmm.

So I've received the go-ahead to register for courses at UWM...I guess this makes it real: I'm going to ... go to grad school? Weird.

Okay, enough about my life: how about that science stuff?

Well I've lost my luster and drive to finish off my last lecture...part 2 was going to be pretty image intense comparing maps of the galaxy (and our position) to maps of the Earth pointing out the distance between Spain/Portugal/England and say the Pitcairn Islands. It was epic, I promise. The title of the entry was going to be "If there's a bright shiny center of the universe you're on the planet it's furthest from." Essentially: There might be life out there, just really far away and we're tucked away in an obscure corner. Only, Marcus being Marcus, I would have taken a page or two to say that. You know how I can be.

I should be frequenting the coffee shop pretty regularly (what else am I going to do, right?) so you'll hear more from me as I get re-connected to the internet and what's happening in the world at large.

N = (R*) (fp) (ne) (fl) (fi) (fc) L

Read an interesting article on the potential of life existing elsewhere in the universe. The entire article is here, or you can just read on for a couple paragraph summary...

The jist of the article is not discussing the possibility of life elsewhere, instead the author is commenting on why life, if discovered on Mars specifically, is bad news for Earth. It's a pretty compelling, if not convincing, argument. I suppose one should start at the beginning: from all we can tell when it comes to intelligent life in the Universe we're it. Our SETI program and the likes have turned up nothing. Simple math, famously the Drake equation, would imply intelligent life has to exist out there. There are 100 billion stars in our own galaxy (a middling size affair) and 100 billion galaxies in the universe. It seems that every time we turn around scientists have discovered another star with planets in orbit, indicating solar systems are more of a norm than an exception in the universe. With all those hundreds of billions of stars, and in turn hundreds of billions of planets: where are they? Where are the aliens? Certainly life should be the common denominator in the galaxy and universe, the sky should be littered with radio signals if not interstellar travel. With all the conditions seemingly favoring intelligent life across the universe something must be stopping it from existing: a "Great Filter" in the author's term.

There are two places a filter such as this could exist. Either in front of us (using our current status as "just" before interstellar travel and good interstellar communication as a base) or behind us in terms of development.

Option 1) the filter is behind us. This could be any number of locations: just the rise of life (after all it took nearly a billion years before our planet got it right and it has only happened once on this planet: as opposed to say photosynthesizing which has independently developed multiple times), the development of multicellular organisms, the development of sexual reproduction (and thus a reliable source of variation beyond mutation), or any such event.

If this is the case the development of complex, and beyond that intelligent, life is extraordinarily rare and we stand atop the technological pyramid of a universe either devoid of life, or teeming with unintelligent life.

Option 2) the filter is ahead of us. The rise to intelligence is nearly inevitable(or at least common, we're the rule not the exception) on planets with the "right" conditions. However shortly after reaching the interstellar travel stage (or just prior to it) "something" happens to destroy them. The obvious culprit would be that with the technology to travel to the distant stars comes the power to destroy ones own species...and over time it is inevitable that it will happen. If you make enough planet splitting bombs, some one is going to let one off. Other culprits could be our particle accelerators or other science experiments forming a blackhole and tearing apart the planet (or some other catastrophic disaster). Catastrophic global warming from the technology required to advance. Any of these could do. But definitely something more than just a societal collapse (say the collapse of the West). Cultures have risen and fallen, each time picking up the pieces and advancing again. It would take more than that to stop all progress: mainly our ultimate demise as a species.

If we find life on Mars we essentially prove that life IS the common denominator in the universe, as it has happened here twice in our solar system. That's 2 for what...6 possible life-supporting planets (Mars, Venus, Earth, and let's just throw in 3 random moons from Saturn or Jupiter). If 1/3 of "good" planets have life...there's a metric shit ton of life out there. If we find a simple life form...well the "filter" could be behind us still, it could be the transition to multicellular life that's so rare. If it's a more complex...then things are more difficult to explain away. More of the likely "behind us" options are removed leaving it more likely that the filter is ahead of us.

If the Filter is ahead of us? Well, that's a gloomy picture. It means that millions of times species have reached where we are now...and then utterly destroyed themselves before being able to begin expanding across their galaxy or the universe. (The author goes into detail about how quickly a single species could colonize across a galaxy...well quickly in comparison to the life of stars or galaxies). That is not encouraging especially as we're getting closer and closer to developing weapons that really could destroy the entire world in a moment (as opposed to the current doomsday scenario of thousands of nukes being required to carpet the globe, to actually kill us all).

It's an interesting concept. But I do have a pretty substantial beef with it; which I'll continue in my next post...but this should be enough to get the gears in your heads turning, and serve as an apology for my gap in postings: I've been sick and just moved back home for a bit while setting up my next digging gig.

Iron Man

So I'm a little late to this party, so sue me...I only saw the movie today (figuring to go with less people in the theater, a more enjoyable experience for me). First of all...we didn't get to see the new Batman trailer, we got 2 Indiana Jones trailers instead. 2? Really?

Now, on to the movie, this might come as a shock but I'm going to have to give it 2.5 stars.

I'll pause to let those who have seen it recover from their outrage before I go on. Go take some deep breaths and then come back when you're in control of yourself.

Right up until the last 20 minutes: great movie, I would have given it a 3.5 deal (taking a bit off because lets face it...it's a bit cheesy and over the top. I love that stuff, and eat it up, but it's kind of silly). But the last boss battle just really really damaged the entire movie for me. What's about to follow is kind of a spoiler, so avert your eyes.

*Spoiler alert*
Did you notice something really missing from this movie? Say...Iron Man really kicking ass and taking names? You had a pretty cool fight with his prototype outfit at the onset (one that we've seen most of in the trailers), and then a pretty cool fight, but very one sided and brief, with the red shirt ensigns of the 10 rings evil conspiracy people. It all was building to an awesome fight with the main baddy, wearing the other suit (Iron Monger I think his name is?) where you get to see two robots (essentially) unleashing the full power of the suits, wreaking havoc, and just being amazing. Instead you got the Iron Man suit only at 20% power...not able to fight for more than a few seconds, instead trying to "out think," outrun, out hide, and out trick the other suit. It wasn't bad in and of itself...but it was a terrible let down against the rest of the movie. We never saw Iron Man challenged and using his suit to full capacity. Having the main fight with your hero crippled...and getting his ass beat (as opposed to say in Gladiator where the hero is so awesome that you can only have parity with the baddy if Maximus is crippled), after never really seeing him kick ass is just a giant let down. The movie had carefully culled back his power having him go against under matched opponents he didn't really need to go balls to the wall against, building to a crescendo that never came. Huge disappointment, I'm docking it a full star for that.

*end spoilers*

The scene at the end of the movie: pretty cool...but I'm not going to nerdgasm over it just yet. It's not until 2011 that the Avengers movie is supposed to be released...I'll get a little more excited in 2010.

Undead Naked Archaeology

Alright, so I've finally got my ass in gear and I've started my second blog: undead naked archaeology. I'm going to focus my archaeology posts there: be they comics, new research, or my own personal stories. The plan is to update a couple times a week there in addition to here with a more general focus.

Pop Culture Ruminations

I'm going to give you all a break from my scheduled science-y updates. Yeah I know you're terribly disappointed: you wanted to hear about the cosmos, or evolutionary biology, or the pseudo-science of archaeology (hey, we use metric and everything!). But, instead I'm going to just have to break your hearts.

Years ago I was introduced to mc chris through one song, "Fett's Vette." It was an amusing ditty, I memorized the words, rocked out to it, and didn't really investigate him further. I noticed as he garnered roles in the various [Adult Swim] shows, saw him ranting about Kingdom Hearts but never really got past him as MC Pee Pants, or that guy rapping about Boba Fett.

Somehow yesterday while just cruising around the internets (hey I'm in Kentucky and I wasn't planning on gambling on the horse race*...I'm allowed) I re-discovered the wonders of mc chris.

**Allow me a moment to digress. The path I followed to get to mc chris was amusing. I was watching a pretty sweet Canadian rapper's video (Jesse Dangerously, his site is dangerously.ca) and the youtube side bar suggested I look at some random mc chris song. And yes, I use youtube to listen to songs for free before deciding if I want to purchase them. Apparently the fact that they are both white (and rap) was enough for youtube to think I would like them both equally. I did...but it is interesting that youtube has a latently racist filter. I highly recommend you check out Jesse, he's really talented.**

Anyhow, mc chris: he's from the next town over from me back home, representing the North Shore. His style is called "nerdcore" as often his songs include mentions of Star Wars, video games, all that cool nerd stuff. I hate how everything is "____-core" these days. He aggressively supports file sharing; he took down his earlier albums from being sold (on his site, iTunes, you name it) saying "Pirate that shit." So his success has been through file sharing, and actively encouraging his audience to remix his work, spreading the news.

I'd suggest you check out his site (mcchris.com) where you can listen to the songs off his new album "mc chris is dead." My favorite song on there is in fact a remix of his earlier song "geek." The mix is called "zakath geek remix" (you can probably find the original somewhere else on the internet as well, I also recommend "white kids love hip-hop"). It's really an awesome song, and doubly awesome that he's taken those remixes and put them on his album with his own work. So yeah, cruise by at your convenience and check it out. On this album it also turns out he wrote a song about my future wife. There was some sort of "make your own music video" contest for this song, and I happen to like the one I'm posting here the best (although a quick look through the hits on the other videos indicate that the one featuring pretty girls had 700k hits to this ones 10k. ). So yeah: a tribute to my once and future wife: nrrrd grrrl





* Okay, I need to put an addendum here concerning the Derby this year. In case you didn't hear the number 2 placing horse (Eight Belles) broke both her ankles on the track immediately after the race and had to be euthanized right there on the track. What a damn shame. I understand that these horses are bred to race, and to love to race, so they aren't really being "forced" into it (just like sled dogs aren't abused into racing the Iditarod, they love to run). I saw Melanie's thoroughbreds racing each other enough to realize that the enjoy the exhilaration of just sprinting about, that's not my beef. Instead it is in the breeding itself: the emphasis on breeding for the speed traits has left them so delicate especially considering that they're racing at 2 and 3 years old; before they're even necessarily done growing, bones fully fused and solid, etc. The traits for speed tend to make them delicate; hence all the breakdowns (two broke down at the Rolex 3 Day last weekend here as well). I'm not an expert in any way shape or form, but I like to think that I can learn from those around me, and from what Cari and Melanie have shared I think I can safely say that it's cruel to select for traits that are so dangerous in the long run of a horse's life...but there's no way to enforce breeding for sturdier legs and making the next generation of horses slower. Breeders and owners wouldn't go for it...they want speed, and longer thinner ankles with more powerful muscles is faster (if more dangerous). It's not just spindly legs, an extreme example of this dangerous trait breeding is the HYPP disorder found in many quarter horses, causing increased muscle growth essentially at the cost of the disorder killing or crippling the horse later in life.

This isn't particularly well structured, and I haven't cited any sources as to the specific traits that are dangerous and how they're selected...but you have the internet; if you're really going to call me on it google it yourself.

Poor Eight Belles, gave those boys a hell of a race.

Just like American Airlines...

I apologize for the long delay. Life, as it has a tendency to do, has been happening.

I intended to do a bit of work over the weekend, comic and "blog"-wise, but Dr. Cook called me (or "DC" as he's known in the biz) and I ended up volunteering my weekend to go up to Dayton to dig out at Wildcat. For the uninitiated Wildcat is the site I worked on last summer and will be once more this June and July. Nothing extremely exciting was going on, just prepping the sites of our trenches with shovel tests. However it did cut into my R&R time.

What on earth could I have planned to do otherwise with my weekend?

Well the plan is to eventually get a blog up here specifically for my archaeological record. Or rather for me to record my archaeological wanderings, musings, and news. Any comics would be posted there (hopefully once a week...we'll see how that goes) along with updates of my own digs and the archaeological world as a whole. This particular corner of cyber space I intend to continue to fill with general updates of stuff I find interesting: my life, science, the internets, whatevs.

Currently I'm working at the local Panera, using their internet instead of the hotel's. The luxurious Days Inn has been kind of cranky of late: locking us all out of our rooms, cutting of internet access intermittently, and when I put my "do not disturb" sign up during the day they leave a new set of towels and soaps and the like on my doorknob. So now that I've kept them out 3 days in a row (no sense in having them change my sheets and towels every day; I'm not that pampered) I have 3 garbage bags (yes, that's how they come bundled) full of towels. How bizarre.

I was going to put up a cool picture as a segue to my next idea for a post...but even here the internet is being weird and disconnecting periodically. Tres bizarre. I have no idea what is going on...so here is a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.

Bingo: Dino DNA

Okay, well not exactly DNA...just a protein sequence.

If you don't know what I'm refering to, you can read a poor overview at the media outlet of your choice. An abstract from the magazine Science is here.

If you don't feel like reading that little paragraph, it goes like this. While transporting a T-rex bone, it was accidently broken. Some of the shards were sent to a scientist who upon further analysis discovered some intact proteins (not an intact DNA sequence mind you). A series of tests showed that the sequence had more in common with birds than with reptiles.

Now this isn't exactly earthshattering news: it's been pretty well accepted that the branch of dinosaurs that included T-rex had a branch that evolved into birds. This is NOT to say that the T-rex evolved into a bird of course. It is pretty exciting to see that soft tissue has survived 68 million years, however. And of course this adds support to the prevailing theories concerning birds and dinosaurs.

I've been involved in a discussion over on the Fark forums: it turns out one of my fellow Farkers has a friend who is working to oppose this new discovery. It turns out there is quite a bit of bacterial and fungal contamination, with the potential to throw off the results. Now I am not swayed by this argument; the Dino test also did the same for mastodons "proving" they were closely related to elephants (duh). For a bacterial soup to contaminate and throw off the dino sample and just happen to make it look like a bird sequence is highly unlikely, but I'll accept as possible. But for it to happen a second time and again skew it to look like the hypothesized result (of a totally different group of animals to boot) is just too much for me. Also the challenge admits that in their analogous sample they didn't find the same collagen that the original author did, just many of the surrounding features (so called "blood cells" and other structures). Without the collagen, a very material found in multicellular organisms (and not bacteria) the critique seems unfounded. I was forwarded the poster that the challenger presented at some conferences, but since his work hasn't been published yet I am uncomfortable sharing it here.

It's pretty exciting watching the scientific process in action, even as an uneducated spectator. Theory, counter-Theory, egos and reputations on the line. The challenge is warranted, of course. With a major advancement caution is always advised (we don't need another Piltdown Man debacle); and the bacterial contamination is a red flag. However, at the end of the day I'm not swayed...and besides it's one step closer to humans finally being able to ride dinosaurs. To think: this quackery might actually be possible someday!

Undead Naked Archaeology...the first day

She blinded me with...

So after finding myself drawn into one of those irritating creationism debates I decided, momentarily, that America is doomed. It's no wonder our economy is tanking, the dollar is wretched, China is catching up in the space race (with Europe caught up, Russia set to surpass us when we discontinue the shuttle and replace it with...nothing), medical research is stagnant, we're still dependent on fossil fuels (with viable alternatives more and more apparent with each passing week), etc. etc.

Science is failing us. Or rather we are failing at science.

Over half our country claims to be creationists, rejecting evolution entirely, embracing young earth creationism, and sending their money to that farce of a museum up in northern Kentucky (the creationism museum). Well that's no big deal right? It's only one tiny branch of science ("evolutionism") balanced against the entire field.

Well, not exactly. What follows is a list of other sciences that are rejected by this argument. The Yecs (young earth creationists) aren't just singling out one small "controversial" group amongst the scientific community. They're opposite nearly all of science. I'll arrange them roughly alphabetically.

Anthropology: multiple fields of science for this one, as follows:
Archaeology: My field, but I'll not spend too much time on it. Obviously there are artifacts that go back more than 6,000 years.
Physical Anthropology: This includes the paleoanthropologists (the Leakeys; Lucy et al.) It goes without saying that the ones working on human evolution, uncovering modern human remains 200,000 years old and transitional human fossils millions of years old that are rejected by the Yecs.
Linguistic Anthropology: Back in the day these were the rebel cowboys...able to track human migrations and movements through the current language trends and locations. They linked India to Eurasia (they're a people with cultural and biological origins in the Eurasian steppes (Caucasian, as in the Caucus region of the world, not Anglo-white) with a language related more to Greek than Chinese), showed how many tens of thousands of years ago the Americas were populated , and can trace back the origins of language to roots 50+ thousand years ago (ooops that's more than 6,000!).

Astronomy: By charting the stars and their locations, using devil telescopes as well as the naked eye, the universe has proven to be massive...stars we see are many many light years away. I believe the furthest that we can see with the naked eye is around 15,000 light years away, to say nothing of how far Hubble can see. However if the Yecs were right we wouldn't be able to see it. We'd only be able to see stars 6,000 light years away. After all if the Universe were created 6,000 years ago a star 7,000 light years away would not be visible for another 1,000 years. Maybe the devil makes light go faster to fool us.

Biology: Huge field, multiple areas in conflict...to name a few
Genetics (think the concept of their tracing humans back to an "eve" ~ 200,000 years ago), of course
Evolutionary biologists: (I'm pretty sure we're all fairly familiar with these conflicts) Fossil records...DNA testing...the fact that it makes predictions based on observations that are then proven through experimentation, all that.
Molecular biologists working on cancers or diseases that evolve and mutate. If mutations and change to our DNA didn't occur I'd never have to put on sunscreen (as a simple example) as the UV radiation wouldn't cause a mutation: a kink in the DNA chain interfering with vitamin B production causing cancer. If viruses couldn't evolve we'd have a working vaccine for HIV, MRSA wouldn't exist, nor would drug resistant strains of TB.
Plant Biology: This is a favorite of mine...who the heck picks on plant biologists? Well apparently the Yecs have a big problem. Why? Dendrochronology. In a simpler word? Tree ring dating. Using slow growing wood, like the bristlecone pine (the oldest individual was found to be 4,000+ years old) from a single region a pattern emerges from the rings. In wet years the trees grow more ( depositing a thicker ring) in dry years they grow less (thinner ring). I'm simplifying it as binary for sake of argument. Now with a 4,000 year sample they'll come up with a pattern. 0110001101110011101101. Or whatever. With a couple overlapping specimen they've determined that yes, this is an accurate "calender," and rings do correspond to calender years. Okay, that's great, but so what? A 4,000 year old record of weather doesn't stand in conflict with the Yecs. Oh, but it does. Using overlapping tree lives found in preserved wood they've managed to project this pattern back some 10,000 years in some regions, creating a "master pattern" for the region. Basically with sufficient overlap you can keep extending your calender backwards. So you have 3 trees:

0011110011010101010111001011010
->100101101001110110101101
-->10110110110111001010101101

This is a very useful tool to have, as if I find a piece of preserved wood I can look at the pattern and determine what year it is from by matching it along the pattern.
There's another problem besides the trees proving the world is over 6,000 years old. Dendrochronology was used as the control against which to calibrate Radio Carbon Dates. Take a piece of wood you know is 5,000 years old thanks to the tree ring time line, and see what sort of carbon decay has occurred. Contrary to Yec arguments C-14 isn't an assumption...it is tested against a solid and proven dating calender.

Geology: It's crazy to think that back during the 17th and 18th centuries it was the geologists who were the crazy radical scientists taking on the institution. They were the ones being "tricked by the devil" into thinking the world was old. By looking at things like erosion, land formation, and more recently plate tectonics, they were the ones who realized the world was old. Very old. Enlightenment era geologists concluded the earth had to be at least a million years old, formed through uniform change (though slight) over a very long time period. Yeah they vastly underestimated the age, but it was a start.

Paleontology: A double whammy here. First the usual very old earth argument. Secondly they find no evidence of "the flood." In fact while dinosaurs were initially argued to be evidence for the flood (they missed the boat, so to speak), and they claim all the oil in the world is from the animal matter being created (quickly) from that die off. Well that and there are records of several periodic die offs, the KT die off only being the sexiest...but not the largest (that would be the P-TR extinction: the Great Dying, where 96% of sea life died, 70% of land life, and the only known mass extinction where insects were also among the victims). I guess there were a bunch of floods...that killed fish too...so apparently God had to restart a lot. He must have been working on Vista. Secondarily the paleontologists test the predictions of evolutionary biologists. For example the big theory is that life began simply and has become more complex through time, as evolution adds new mutations and changes that prove beneficial. Sure enough you have fish with gills before amphibians with lungs. You have simple 3 chambered heart cold blooded creatures before warm blooded 4 chambered hearts. Lizards before mammals. Fish before amphibians. Etc. Also paleontologists find transitional fossils. Fish with robust fins/simple legs. Bats with wings but no echolocation abilities. Reptiles with feathers and bird-like pelvises. Apes that stand upright, but can't speak. The record is, while not abundant or overflowing with these fossils, filled with examples of "missing links."

Physics: C-14 dating, Potassium Argon Dating, Thermoluminescence, etc. etc. Additionally with astrophysics: the speed of light (ties into the Astronomers), and all of their work with an old universe. I'm no astrophysicist, so I'm hardly qualified to take up their torch, but it's fairly apparent that they don't think the universe was created a couple millennia ago, and have their own science to prove their observations. Just remember that the work of physicists allow your cell phone to work (imagine if light didn't travel at a constant...how would your conversation be transmitted if some words were transmitted at different speeds than others? Or if part of the data didn't travel the same speed as the rest resulting in a garbled signal). Nuclear power, the atom bomb, cell technology, satellite communications, lasers, the list goes on. I guess the Yecs would like to keep a couple of Physicists in the closet hidden away to keep all that stuff working.

Zoology: Okay, it's hard to separate them from biologists. But I just had to have a Z in here as well. A-Z and all that. Zoologists, thanks to cladistics, link animals based on their relatedness. Dolphins and whales belong to the same Order, Cetacea, because they are related. Not because they're roughly physically similar, built off a similar model by some creator, but because they share common ancestors. (I think ~ 50 million years ago). If physical similarity were the only requirement it would be Elephants and Rhinos that would be the Hippopotamus's closest relative, not the whales and dolphins.

So, in the last 20 minutes and off the top of my head that's a quick list of all the groups of science that are "at war with Christianity." Of course no such war exists...there are many Christians who are scientists, and believing in a biological ancient origin of our planet in no way means you can't have faith. But apparently, according to the Yecs, all these branches of science are evil. The only "war" is to keep your damn ignorance out of the scientific discussion. If and when you have a scientific, sound, reviewed, experimental observation that you can present in a civil manner in keeping with the rules of academia, you are more than welcome to come on in. Dissent is welcome and essential to the scientific process.

Is it any wonder that when we elect a fundamentalist Christian to the highest office that our science budget gets slashed? And I mean for all science, not just evolutionary biology or paleoanthropology. Is it a shock that suddenly scientists encounter a hostile environment that doesn't appreciate their contributions, their intellect, and the benefits they offer our country?* Is it any wonder that other nations close the gap that at one time put us head and shoulders above the rest of the world when it came to science, technology, and the production benefits of both?

In our country, "science" has become a bad word. As if they are trying to ... I don't know what. Seduce our children and make them become gay pedophiles who sodomize animals while burning the American flag. I guess that's what we want... Visiting a cave in Missouri a tourist asked the park guide how old the cave was. She smirked and looked at the other guide and said "Well, if you believe the scientists..." You know what, screw you. If you don't want electricity, medicine, a thriving economy, a technological edge over the rest of the world, or a strong dollar...you don't have to "believe the scientists."

Look, science is no magical happy unicorn that will fix everything and make the world a better place for ever and ever. It can be used to do terrible things, at the risk of Godwinning my entire entry, one needs look no further than the 1930's in Germany for an example of this. But science itself is not inherently evil. That was science being used for evil. It wasn't the science that was making decisions in the Reichstag. And just so you don't think I'm too full of myself: it is also not inherently good. It is simply a means at which we can gain understanding and control over the world that surrounds us.

A perfect example is nuclear physics. The split atom is neither good nor evil. It has the potential to either create clean, inexpensive, nearly unlimited power to the world...or it can be used to terrorize the world, vaporize innocents and poison the land for generations. Does that make the scientists working under the football stadium at the University of Chicago good men or evil men? Perhaps they were both good and evil at the same time...and until their work is used by the world they are simultaneously good and bad. Kind of like a cat in a box...alive and dead until you open it to see.


*Case in point, NASA was studying a supernova that had gone off, and were preparing to release their report. Doing good science, observe, document, publish for scrutiny and education. The white house controller (I can't remember the exact name of the position...PR something or other probably) told them not to release the report. Why? It dealt with the death of a star, and our sun is a star. And the thought of our own star dying some day would be a downer...and the American people don't need to think about that. Wow, no one tell them about cancer...that's such a downer it makes people cry! Someone stop those damn depressing scientists from writing about it!

Undead Naked Archaeology

Coming Soon To A Theater Near You

living the dream my friends...living the dream

So I had a pretty intense and detailed post ready and prepped to put down here today. But when I woke up I received a phone call from Gray and Pape concerning my employment. More specifically they had a job opening they'd like me to take...starting yesterday. So I'm springing into gear, cleaning my equipment, sharpening my trowels, oiling my boots and heading out to Frankfort Kentucky for the next couple weeks and then up into Indiana. It's a phase III site, Fort Ancient culture, pretty sweet. Should be if not a cake walk at least really interesting and exciting. I'd best leave soon so I'm not totally bogged down in traffic...

God I love my job.

Bears mothafucka. Bears.

So, I'm updating just to update. I feel that it's been a while since I did so, and I don't want you all to think that I'm a bad and lazy person. Don't get me wrong; I am a bad and lazy person, I just don't want you to think it.

"But Marcus," I hear you cry out, "Now that you've said that you're a bad and lazy person of course we're going to think it!"

Probably not. More likely your instinct was "No Marcus, you're not bad and lazy!"

And so I win. I am bad and lazy (doubly bad for manipulating you into thinking I'm a good and not-lazy person).

I wonder what our ancestors would think of the internet. Here we have an incredibly powerful tool* and we use it as a toy, posting lolcats and videos of guys getting hit in the nuts. Let's be honest, we all love a good nut-smash video. Instead of breaking down cultural barriers, learning about our cousins in Africa or Asia while teaching them about us...we look at naked boobies or virtually teabag 11 year olds in Halo. But then again that little punk had it coming...spawn camping whore.

I'm sure we could move them past thinking it was a devil box, witchcraft, magic machine** and at least explain what it does...if not how. What would they use it for? (I mean after exploring the depths of pornography) I'd love to watch Plato, Chaucer and Disraeli making and laughing at the latest lolcats. What historical figure's lolcat would you want to see?

*arguably the most powerful tool in the history of mankind. Why more powerful than say the atom bomb, or the internal combustion engine? Well this is a tool for communication. Total, unbridled free communication. I think it has been demonstrated fairly well that among the things that make us "human" and not just another animal is our ability to communicate. To convey abstract thoughts and ideas. To teach and learn using this amazing technique. That is what makes us human...we don't have to discover levers, the wheel, or the internal combustion engine on our own. We can take what others have learned, utilize and expand it...always progressing (so long as the communication with the past is upheld. When you lose that communication, like when literacy rates fall, you get the Dark Ages...only in the last couple centuries have we matched and surpassed the knowledge and technology of the Hellenized world).

**Okay maybe not that one...I'm sometimes pretty convinced that my computer is magical. I can't wrap my head around how it, or the internet, actually work. How did that happen? Magic.

Wanderlust

The itch struck me again...

So I'm off into the blue yonder once more. Quit my job in Missouri and am sending out my CV, hopefully I'll get a gig in Indiana that a buddy sent my way.

Apparently this sort of lifestyle is "so freaking weird." I dunno, it seems pretty normal to me. I just go where the work is, moving whenever I feel antsy, bored, superfluous, or just want a change of scenery. Can't everyone do that?

Well, no. I understand that, and I'm very grateful that I do have this sort of freedom. But on the other hand, it just seems very natural. Because of all the rain the project in Missouri is trickling on, but there isn't really enough work to keep all 18 of us occupied. They hired a massive crew trying to knock out 3 sites on a certain Billy Shepard's field by April first...the idea being to pile bodies on to meet a stupid deadline he imposed (he isn't too keen on the pipeline, and us, being on his property). It would have worked too...if it weren't for those meddling kids...rainstorms. I meant rainstorms. We lost so many units due to rain, put on hold or actually ruined, that we've got at least another week on his property waiting for them to dry out...but we've only been able to work on one or two pits at a time, which means 10 people or so standing around trying to do a 2-4 person job.

Blech, it's just so frustrating. The cold and wet don't help...but it's the useless puttering around, busy work, the total inefficiency that started my wandering itch this time. Paul's email came just as it started to get bad, so I've leaped at the chance and walked away, hoping once more I'll land on a good gig.

There's good work to be done out there, and I want to do as much of it as I can, see as many places...artifacts...cultures as possible, do as much archaeology as I can. I figure I've only got 50 years or so left (1/3 of my time is gone!) no sense in wasting time, right? Some people want families, and that's awesome. I'm serious, despite all my sarcastic comments to the contrary. If that's what will fulfill you, make you happy, scratch your brain...by all means do it. That just isn't my shtick, I need to explore, figure out what's going on out there. So I'm going to. I'm taking a week or so to regroup, resupply and clean my equipment, then head on out. It's amazing how fast time goes...and how much left there is to do.

Angry noises

So, I posted a bullshit filler on Monday, and nothing yesterday. Why? Because I'm really grumpy.

It just. Keeps. Raining.

Of course it is spring, and it is supposed to rain. I mean duh, that's what spring is all about, without rain the plants wouldn't bloom, the crops wouldn't grow and all that. But I am not a plant, and neither is archaeology.

I can hear the protests "But Marcus, that stuff has been there for a thousand years, getting flooded into, what's one more rain drop gonna do?"

Oh I wish.

Unfortunately when we open a unit we expose any features or fragile artifacts (here it's mainly pottery) to the elements, instead of being protected by feet of dirt. We lost one potsherd when it we exposed to open water as our unit flooded...it just disintegrated. Poof gone. We've pulled out water pumps, and they aren't really that helpful. Sure they'll pull out the foot of water that flows in over night, and we even dug little sump wells so that the water drains there instead of the floor. The problem is that the pump will get all the water and then start sucking air, which will burn out the impeller. So we turn it off. Then the unit floods again 5 minutes later, so we turn it on...work a little...and then repeat the whole process as water oozes out of the floor, through the walls and out the sump well. This makes the floor a mucky mess, which in order to excavate we need to stand on...churning up the muck. Any features (which are signs of cultural activity usually visible as dark stains) are obliterated. It's terrible.

We have so few pits that are digable (well...none of them are really, just some that don't have much information so we just chunk them out as quickly as possible to give it a good faith effort) that people just sit around or pile onto a unit needlessly. Today we had like 12 people excavating one pit. Okay, I lied. We called the pit done and were just running an auger to 4m to do a quick and dirty sample. Not the work of 12 people...3 at most. Hooray. Perhaps next time I'll explain the differences between the phases of archaeology and why this so bad. But for now, trust me, it is bad. Bad archaeology, bad weather, grumpy people, bad news bears.

Opening Day

While I am psyched for opening day, the crack of the bat, the green of the ivy, and all of that...I question the wisdom of starting on March 31st. Really? That just seems so early. As if to prove my point today's game went through hours of rain delays, culminating in a loss for my Cubbies. Boohoo.

But on the bright side Fukudome hit a 3 run home run, so he's off to a good start making me glad we scooped him out of Japan. Soriano and Theriot went 0 for 10 to lead it off...Soriano just still doesn't look comfortable out of his leadoff spot. On paper he should be second or third, but history just doesn't back that up. Something in his head doesn't adjust well to the movement. I hope Pinella either breaks through and convinces him to hit regardless of his position in the lineup. As for Theriot...he's a sparkplug, but his OBP is just too low for leadoff. He's better fit for the 7 or 8 spot.

Well, it's just one game, 161 to go...and we're in last place.

mea culpa

I forgot the skunk ape a couple days ago in my discussion of possible undiscovered large primates. The skunk ape is the "bigfoot" spotted across the south east of the United States, particularly in Florida. Unlike the bigfoot and yeti this ape apparently has a pungent odor.

For the record I don't think there's any possibility of this animal existing. At least as an undiscovered ape. An escaped chimp or orangutan hanging out in the swamp? Perhaps that would account for the one pretty decent photo of the "skunk ape" it does look a lot like an orangutan.

Also for the record, bigfoot has been spotted, supposedly, in at least 49 of the 50 states. Stupid Hawaii...throwing off my numbers.

Man, I must seem like some crazy cryptozoologist or conspiracy theorist with all this talk of UFO's and Bigfoots (Bigfeet?).

Had one of those amazing archaeologist discussions today...you know the kind. Loud. Indoors. Terribly inappropriate. Lots of locals staring in horror. It revolved around the lovely sex terms found on Urban Dictionary. (By the way...should I use "on" or "in" for that...is it in the UD, as though it were a real book? Or is it "on" as in "online" or "on that page?") After explaining to the unenlightened about the Pirate, the Superman, and other lovely maneuvers...I came up with my own. First we talked about "the Munich" wherein you sweat buckets while having sex and thinking about the terror attack and slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team (straight from Eric Bana in the movie "Munich"...that was a really messed up scene. I can't even begin to describe how odd it was to you who haven't seen the movie). Ashley and I were having trouble putting it into perspective for Adam and Kim (our table mates...much to the horror of the other patrons we were going into more and more detail). I came upon the analogy...it's kind of like fantasizing about September 11th during sex. So our new move is called the Nine-Eleven. As in "man, I'd go nine-eleven on that ass" or perhaps "dude, I'd totally knock down her towers." I'm not sure exactly what that would entail...I'm going to try to insert it into the vernacular by using it in conversation.

Natalie Portman? I'd totally crash a plane into that ass...

Mr. Sandman

Sleep is so weird...

I mean, I love it. It just might be my favorite time of day, and one of my favorite activities. But why on earth do we have to do it? And how come just an hour or so difference one way or the other can have such an immense impact on the day as a whole? An hour too little...and you're cranky, unable to concentrate, and a wreck. Too much and your entire body clock can be thrown off, or you can feel just as miserable as if you hadn't slept enough.

I'm going to go gather data of this phenomenon at the moment. That's what being a scientist is all about, finding problems and gathering data, observing, and figuring out what's going on.

That and staying up too late,working 10 hours, and then being a wreck the rest of the evening.

That one looks like a teddy bear

Stupid rain...now we have to work late to make up the lost time from earlier this week. I'm too tired for any profundity.

I'm just gonna chase those transparent lines and shapes you can see at the periphery of your vision. They're so weird...

Crack pots, crack, pot...or just cracked

The human mind is a bizarre thing. Now, this alone isn't an insight of any shock or depth...one need only look at the news to see strange people, or normal people doing strange things. As an anthropologist I don't study the bizarre...we like the mundane, the normal. Everything that we find we have to assume is normal...simply because it's easier. I suppose it's rooted in statistics at some point, the odds of finding the abnormal is much less than finding the normal. In 5000 years it's far more likely that an archaeologist will find a Honda than one of the concept cars unveiled every year (and promptly forgotten). Psychologists and sociologists are the ones who really deal with the bizarre...at most an anthropologist will study how society, the normies, deal with the bizarre (like burning them in the case of Medieval Europe). Still, it's fascinating to us all (or at least to me...and I'll speak for you all. So there). We also all love parenthetical statements. (right?)

The conspiracy freak is a particularly unique breed of the bizarre. In this case I'm not referring to truthers, people who think the CIA puts transmitters in our fillings, the water fluoride mind control, or the real nutjobs. Instead the people who 1) perpetuate hoaxes regarding UFOs, and 2) those who are taken in. A quick caveat: I want to believe. I was raised on the X-files, of course I want to believe. But what's running through the minds of those who say that they are former employees of area 51, working with extraterrestrials to reverse engineer spacecraft? The Russians had difficulty reverse engineering the B-29, a single step above their engineering levels, and somehow we can bridge thousands of steps? Or this other nutjob, who claimed to work with the man who invented the famous totally impractical flaying saucer in the 50's (could hover ~ 8 feet off the ground)...a man who claimed to be Nikolai Tesla's secret apprentice. He claimed to have secret information regarding resonance (something Tesla was interested in, to the point of quackery) to essentially warp between points. So, naturally, he was contacted by a secret corporation to help work on said machine, not just work on...but use. *insert highly captivating vivid imagery here*

On one hand...who the hell believes this kind of story? No one to corroborate, totally ridiculous scientific "facts" that fly in the face of physics, and a fantastical string of events and gnostic-esque circles of enlightenment. No matter how much I want to believe, you're going to have to do better than that.

On the other, these people have an, apparent, fanatical devotion to their story. They really believe that they were able to circumvent the rules of physics, able to send avatars across the country under the eyes of a super secret super powerful corporation. Well that or they are amazing liars. And certainly some of this breed are liars, desperate for attention...amused and their ability to fool others, whatever their motive. But others clearly believe this...this man really thinks that Tesla passed on the means of using electronic resonance to teleport, and he teleported. In all other aspects of life, the man seemed normal...able to form normal relationships with other humans, hold a job, all the things a crazy person can't do. Where is the source of this disconnect with reality?

I believe in Bigfoot, Sasquatch or the Yeti (kinda, I want to, and think it possible...after all Jane Goodall does, so who am I to argue with the most preeminent primatologist in the world?). But I admit there's not much to it, more the possibility (due to largely unexplored terrain in the Yukon or the Himalayas...intelligence and secretive nature of the other great apes (after all the gorilla was undiscovered until the early part of the 20th century), oral histories of the indigenous peoples, and so on). That said, the story of the man who was captured by Bigfoot...taken back to his den "used" sexually...yeah, not so much.

Am I insane or deluded? Scientifically speaking there is no hard evidence, and I am supposed to be a scientist, right? How do I balance my gut and my brain? Am I the same freak as this guy on TV talking about warping in a brilliant flash of aquamarine? Feel free to answer...that isn't rhetorical.

This is just brain vomit, not well organized or thought through...but oh well, it happens.

Mainly on the plain...

There's something pretty powerful about looking at the radar and seeing a swatch of red and yellow stretching all the way back towards Texas, looking up at the clouds and rain spitting down at you, and connecting the images with reality. Yeah, it was that kind of profundity running through my head today, after all...we only spent 3 hours digging so I had plenty of time to philosophize.

Thinking about the power of a single storm stretching a thousand miles, or standing in a field that would soon be sowed with seed and growing the crops we all depend upon; these crops depending upon this same water. It was kind of profound...thinking about that cycle of interdependency that leads to everything in this valley around me, thousands of pelicans, snow geese, even eagles flying over head. That rain soaking me, making me miserable, was what created all of this, even the hills rising on either side were actually bluffs carved through water erosion, the field fertile through alluvial action.

I was reminded of a story Douglas Adams would recount when he was waxing philosophical...I'm too lazy to use the googles, but I'll retell it, besides I like telling stories.

A puddle wakes up one morning, yawns and blinks, looking around at his surroundings. He ponders his world, the hole he finds himself in, thinking "wow, what a wonderful hole there is here, it's so amazing that it has been made just so that it fits perfectly to my form."

While I believe the original story then goes off to an apocalyptic theme, I'd like to stop it right there...that is exactly the mindset I was in while oggling the sky thinking how everything just fit together. I consider myself an intelligent sort, but even I didn't really notice myself limited in my perspective, limited to a very shallow beauty. Instead I was just thinking how everything just seemed to fit (or was nearly made to fit), I then moved on thinking of how life is liquid...stretching and conforming to the shapes and pressures of its container. I find that even more beautiful and powerful. That complexity reliant on totally different resources, deep sea vents providing life - drawing chemicals out of the rupturing mantle, the "lungs of the earth" in the Rain forest, pumping carbon dioxide from the air providing oxygen for biodiversity across the globe, microbes surviving the vacuum of space surviving on the Apollo spacecrafts...as Dr. Ian Malcolm would say, life...finds a way. *stutter and stammering endearingly*

Instead of everything "fitting," as is so tempting to think when taken away by pure power and beauty, what we see is clawed...kicked and scratched...out of whatever is available. You can't help but think that if tomorrow sulfuric acid were to rain from the clouds, replacing all the water on earth...in 4 billion years there would be something. And I would bet, complex...microbes breaking the acid down into another compound, fungi breaking that down, and so on and so on...creatures and plants filling every crevice, bursting their vessel at the seams. Not because the vessel was made for them...but because life made itself fit. Life...finds a way.

ding ding

Fucking Law and Order. Seriously...it's like crack for middle class America (which of course I'll group myself with for convenience of thought process). We were rained out today, so I got to chill in my lovely room after arriving in Missouri...so what do I do?

Sit down, unpack and flip on the television. Promptly fall asleep during some dry, but interesting, History special on the frigate. That's pretty middle class, right? Falling asleep while watching a television show about war? When I wake up, ready to eat dinner or whatever I flip around and lo and behold L&O is on. That was around 5.

It's still on, still in the background as we "speak" on at least two channels. Have I turned it off? No. I've left to go to the store...stuff like that, but 1) there really isn't much good on (I have no desire to watch anyone dissecting the NCAA seeding) and 2) it's "good enough" to keep me from seriously looking.

The second is the crux...it's good enough. Pretty decent formula cop show (especially those ripped from the headlines episodes, they're a hoot). There's nothing especially amazing about the writing, there's a lot of stereotyping (and clever ... and by clever I mean blatent ... reversals of "ooooh look what you get for believing stereotypes"), plenty of deus ex machina, and the like. But hey, the good guys get the bad guys, a mystery is solved by the gang, and you feel good about yourself (and of course humanity, America (fuck yeah!), and the judicial system). I think that's what we normies want, good to be good...bad to be punished...and apple pie for dessert with some ice cream on the top. Wait scratch the ice cream, that's un-American...a la mode my ass you frog bastards! I'm currently watching the classic L&O, but this really encompasses them all, SVU and CI too. They have different rankings based on personal preferences, and quirks but I'll include them all in this generalization, good enough TV. It can be the new line-up blockbuster. Next on TNT; Good Enough T.V.

Man, I need to find more productive hobbies than injecting televised crack into my eyeballs.