On giving the appearance of having computer know-how

xkcd has mapped my thought process exactly. You too can now be a computer wizard!

Things you should know

It's true, I have been terrible about getting the word about, but OMG I am engaged! It's kind of hard to wrap my mind around, especially when I'm living alone in this new place and everything about life is so new right now, but one of these days I'm going to have to get better about saying fiancé instead of boyfriend. Maybe when we get our engagement rings.

So, holy toledo! There is a lot of planning to do! I haven't really done much of anything, but my sisters are excitedly sending me links of pretty wedding dodads and invitation artwork or finding friends of theirs who want to make my wedding cake and only charge me for materials. I signed up for That right away. Hell yeah, man. She can make whatever she wants for that price.

Wedding gown browsing has been a little trickier. Of course anything I really love costs 3-4x what I want to spend. I'm ok with looking a little more casual than the norm dress-wise, especially if it means I have more $$$ to spend on accessories and what not I will actually wear again, but, my god, anything calling itself a wedding dress costs way more than it needs to you. Case in point: there was a dress on Etsy that came in a variety of colors (red, black, white, etc), and the white one cost Hundreds of Dollars More than the red or black one even though the material was the same! That's what I call highway robbery! I want it to be obvious in pictures that I'm the one getting married, but other than that I don't need to be super fancy. Here are some outfits I've liked so far...

Gauchos heyo

I'm just starting to get settled in here in Goleta, the town cuddling up to UCSB, where I start classes tomorrow.

Thank god for our inaugural EEMB (my department) retreat for first years and anyone else who feels like coming. It was so(ooo) nice to get to meet my girls (there is one guy out of the eight of us) before orientation day. Seeing familiar faces in our lab safety training on Monday really gave me the warm and fuzzies. So far I love everyone in my cohort and all the other grad students (at least the ones who come to socials with booze!). Even the faculty are great, especially my advisor. Santa Barbara is no Bay Area, but it feels like the right place to be.

Eg. I have been wanting to learn to knit so that I can make socks, but I don't want any more scarves, and I don't want to spend months making what turns into a lumpy sweater. And what do they have but a beginners knitting class specifically for socks and slippers! It is a sign. I think I might be the first one registered.

The apt. is still mostly empty with cardboard boxes strewn about, but I have a desk, a bed, internet, a couple of bookcases, and two posters up, so it works.

They told us at orientation that we have the highest voter registration rates of any school in the US. Berkeley is second and our rate is twice theirs! I was pleased about that.

California-bound

Suddenly it is my last night in Hawaii.

Hawaii. Where to start.

The first five weeks here, I helped out with the experiments my advisor and her post doc in Hawaii are working on. We're looking at grasses that invaded burned and unburned parts of the dry woodland in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It looks like after 20 or so years, the grasses might finally be declining (because annual grasses don't hold as much nitrogen as the woody shrubs and trees they replaced), so part of our research involves trying to figure out the best strategy for restoring this part of the park. It probably isn't possible to get rid of the grasses, but we're hoping that as they decline, we might be able to reintroduce some of the native trees and shrubs.

For my birthday (on which I turned the big 3-0), everyone in the lab helped me start fieldwork on my own project, in which I am trying to figure out what sorts of plants some of our native and invasive nitrogen-fixing (meaning they can get nitrogen from the air, unlike most other plants which need to get it from the soil) trees promote and what sort of habitats they tend to inhabit. Sounds simple enough, but it involved a lot of twigs in my nose, woody wet willies, dirt in my eyes as I crawled under stands of four types of trees to see what-all was going on down there and cuts all over my hands and up my forearms as I thrashed through thorny invasive lantana (a plant more than happy to get all up in your grill).

I've been working seven days a week, up to ten hours a day, to get it all done before I head back, and, as of right now, all I have left to do is ship my samples to California before catching a plane back to the Bay myself.

It's still hard to believe I'm here as a part of my real life. Everything here is so different -- the landscape, my social circle, my diet, my weekend activities, everything.

This is a typical weekday: Wake up at 5:30am. Make lunch. Make/eat breakfast. Drive through a gorgeous forest full of ohia trees, ferns, and ginger to get to the lab in the national park by 7am. We load our packs for the day and drive about 10 miles out to our field site in the dry woodland. Park and hike 15-60 minutes to our starting spot. Draw a transect line or a 5x10m plot and count and measure everything growing along or in it. Hike back. Drive back to the lab by 3pm. Unload. If I've been working on my own project: set out the day's soils to airdry in paper bags, weigh yesterday's litter, grind litter and leaf samples and pack them into coin envelopes. Head home to shower around 5pm, eat dinner. Try to read a research paper or catch up on emails/find an apartment/sort out which classes to register for/&c. Fall asleep at 9:30pm.

This is a typical weekend: Saturday sleep in till 6! Eat breakfast, catch up on email. Drive (~30 miles) down to the Hilo Farmers Market to get lunch and produce for the week. Maybe swing by Richardson's beach park for a little snorkeling. Go to KTA for the rest of my groceries. Go home, eat dinner, watch So You Think You Can Dance, fall asleep. Sunday sleep in till 6 again! Drive/walk (depending where I'm living) to the Volcano Farmers Market for bananas, eggs, bread, other produce. Drive (~70 miles) to the Kahuku Unit of the park for a hike -OR- drive down Chain of Craters Road to see the petroglyphs -OR- go back to the lab to work. Shower. Eat. Sleep.

I think I am doing ok at this being a grad student thing, but I am still terrified of Even More Change. Eg. moving to an apartment I've never seen in Goleta, starting classes, moving away from everyone I know for an Indeterminate Amount of Time. At the very least Matt will be coming down in January. I take comfort in that. And people say you can't technically fail out of grad school before it starts. I am excited to live so close to the ocean -- just a short walk from a butterfly preserve and ocean bluffs. I am curious to meet what will be my new grad school friends. But I guess a little piece of me isn't totally convinced that what I'm about to do will necessarily be better than what I'd been doing (the unsustainability of my lifestyle notwithstanding). Life is pretty good in the Bay. I hope Santa Barbara and the Goleta scene will rise to the occasion.

Ok, this is what I am worried about: becoming boring, turning into a stress monster, disappointing my advisor (and making her regret taking a chance on me). But seriously, I don't want to turn one-dimensional just because I am becoming an expert in something. Also, I am sad that I don't know when Matt and I will live in the same place for an extended period of time again, but I know that at least will happen.

Fear of trains

I sent my twin apartment scouts on a little adventure this past Sunday, and we have emerged victorious! I'm no longer going to be homeless in Santa Barbara!

As of September 6th, I shall be the proud inhabitant of what I hope will be a darling 1 bedroom apartment in Goleta in a complex with a pool, jacuzzi, sauna, and LAUNDRY! The kitchen is miniscule, but it has a dishwasher -- by which I don't just mean a sink and two hands. The only troublesome thing is that train tracks are visible from the apartment, as in 50 feet away, but I think it will be just fine. Trains are better than freeway, drunk undergrads, and airport noise. I can't wait to plunk my stuff down in there and throw a party!

SO GLAD to have that settled.

Anniversary

Today marks 365 days of bliss with the best gentleman a gal could ask for. Every day for the past long while has made this the longest relationship I've ever been a part of, but today seems a particularly good landmark and vanguard of what I hope will be many more anniversaries. It feels so regal and adult of me to be able to celebrate the completion of a full trip around the sun in the presence of such a stellar human being, when before I could only measure my time with someone by counting orbits of the moon around our small earth on five fingers. It's as if the stars are aligned, and I can feel the hand of the universe warmly nudging me along. I have so much to be thankful for.

Hawaii-ho

More words later. For now, some pictures!

This is where I work!
It can also look like this.
Sometimes we can see the ocean.
Flowers of the native tree Ohi'a lehua Metrosideros polymorpha, one of the species we work with.
This is Kilauea crater, the volcano I live on. It's still active, and you can see it glow red at night.
Mauna Ulu, the growing mountain.
Looking into Mauna Ulu crater.
View from Whittington Beach Park.
Kilauea Iki.
Wet forest.

According to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, a baby named Gauge Danger Smith was born in Hawaii today. Danger really *is* his middle name.

Parisian dreams

82-18

I will admit that I have been on a not-terribly-subtle campaign to help Matt decide that he does in fact want to move to Santa Barbara conmigo in the spring, and it may be working! All of this missing him while he is in Europe is paying off!

Orchid rescue: success

Were you aware of it? vol. 38: It's not a weasel, it's a martin

Man with dead weasel accused of Hoquiam assault

HOQUIAM, Wash. (AP) — Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into a Hoquiam apartment and assaulted a man.

The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker said, "It's not a weasel, it's a martin," then punched him in the nose and fled.

The attacker was apparently looking for his girlfriend and had gone to her former boyfriend's apartment Monday night where the victim was a guest.

KXRO reports he left carcass behind.

Police later found the suspect arguing with his girlfriend at another location and arrested the 33-year-old Hoquiam man after a fight.

He said he had found the martin dead near Hoquiam, but police don't know why he carried it with him.

A martin is a member of the weasel family.

**Courtesy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I feel this merits a theatrical reenactment.

Another look at it

This one from the New York Times.

The End of the Jihadist Dream
By Ali H. Soufan

TO the Qaeda members I interrogated at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere in the aftermath of 9/11, Osama bin Laden was never just the founder and leader of the group, but also an idea. He embodied the belief that their version of Islam was correct, that terrorism was the right weapon, and that they would ultimately be victorious. Bin Laden’s death did not kill that idea, but did deal it a mortal blow.

The immediate reaction of Al Qaeda members to Bin Laden’s death will be to celebrate his martyrdom. The group’s ideology champions death for the cause: Songs are composed, videos made and training camps named in honor of dead fighters. Bin Laden’s deputies will try to energize people by turning him into a Che Guevara-like figure for Al Qaeda — a more effective propaganda tool dead than alive.

But it won’t take long for Al Qaeda to begin wishing that Bin Laden wasn’t dead. He not only was the embodiment of Al Qaeda’s ideology, but also was central to the group’s fund-raising and recruiting successes. Without him, Al Qaeda will find itself short on cash — and members.

Bin Laden’s fund-raising (especially through his connections to fellow wealthy Saudis) and his personal story (his decision to give up a life of luxury and ease to fight in a holy war) had brought him to prominence during the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and later secured his position as Al Qaeda’s leader.

He further cultivated that image by trying to model his ascetic life on that of the Prophet Muhammad — by dressing similarly and encouraging his followers to ascribe divine powers to him. Bin Laden regularly hinted at this when discussing Al Qaeda’s strikes against America and his ability to withstand Washington’s wrath.

Not only has Al Qaeda lost its best recruiter and fund-raiser, but no one in the organization can come close to filling that void. Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who will probably try to take over, is a divisive figure. His personality and leadership style alienate many, he lacks Bin Laden’s charisma and connections and his Egyptian nationality is a major mark against him.

Indeed, one of the earliest things I discovered from interrogating Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Yemen as well as Guantánamo was the group’s internal divisions; the most severe is the rivalry between the Egyptians and members hailing from the Arabian Peninsula. (Even soccer games pit Egyptians against Persian Gulf Arabs.) While Egyptians typically travel to the Gulf to work for Arabs there, in Al Qaeda, Egyptians have traditionally held most of the senior positions.

It was only the knowledge that they were ultimately following Bin Laden — a Saudi of Yemeni origin, and therefore one of their own — that kept non-Egyptian members in line. Now, unless a non-Egyptian takes over, the group is likely to splinter into subgroups. Someone like Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American who is a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is a likely rival to Mr. Zawahri.

Bin Laden was adept at convincing smaller, regional terrorist groups that allying with Al Qaeda and focusing on America were the best ways to topple corrupt regimes at home. But many of his supporters grew increasingly distressed by Al Qaeda’s attacks in the last few years — which have killed mostly Muslims — and came to realize that Bin Laden had no long-term political program aside from nihilism and death.

The Arab Spring, during which ordinary people in countries like Tunisia and Egypt overthrew their governments, proved that contrary to Al Qaeda’s narrative, hated rulers could be toppled peacefully without attacking America. Indeed, protesters in many cases saw Washington supporting their efforts, further undermining Al Qaeda’s claims.

But we cannot rest on our laurels. Most of Al Qaeda’s leadership council members are still at large, and they command their own followers. They will try to carry out operations to prove Al Qaeda’s continuing relevance. And with Al Qaeda on the decline, regional groups that had aligned themselves with the network may return to operating independently, making them harder to monitor and hence deadlier.

Investigations, intelligence and military successes are only half the battle. The other half is in the arena of ideas, and countering the rhetoric and methods that extremists use to recruit. We can keep killing and arresting terrorists, but if new ones are recruited, our war will never end.

Our greatest tool, we must remember, is America itself. We have suffered a great deal at the hands of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and we will never forget those killed in attacks like the 1998 bombings on United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer Cole, 9/11 and the service members killed since then in the war against Al Qaeda.

Many terrorists whom I interrogated told me they expected America to ultimately fold. What they didn’t understand is that as powerful as the Bin Laden idea was to them, America’s values and liberties are even greater to us. Effectively conveying this will bury the Bin Laden idea with him.

Ali H. Soufan, an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005, interrogated Qaeda detainees at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.

On the death of Osama bin Laden

My sister found this article that does a good job summing up my reaction to last night's news.

Chris Hedges, speaking at a Truthdig fundraising event in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, made these remarks about Osama bin Laden’s death.

I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it … about al-Qaida. I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I’m an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told ... me the news, my stomach sank. I’m not in any way naive about what al-Qaida is. It’s an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.

But I’m also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11—and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha—is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.

And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida—that’s clear—he’s kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide … he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren [Beatty] about [Ian] Kershaw’s great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden’s role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned.

I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein … I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.

When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism … the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it’s about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.

And it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate [them], isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida’s operations in the Middle East and Europe.

So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar—who died recently—who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud … someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.

We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.

These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.

And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know its intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight.

Thank you.

Bad Project

I'm going to be a f*cking ecologist

I'm heading to UCSB in the fall to work with the best ever advisor on a PhD in Ecology!!!!! They're even giving me a year of money to start!! I'm overwhelmed with excitement and terror! But a good kind of terror..

Dunno yet if I need to start in Sept or June, so I can't entirely make plans, but I just know I will know soon. And It Feels So Good. I can at least start visualizing my life.

It's almost 3am, so I should get to sleep, but HALLELUJAH!

Still waitin'.

Quick visit to Sonoma State yesterday. I hadn't been to MS only programs before, and I could definitely sense the absence of intensity. Beautiful country, though. Had some good chats with the grad students there, but then of course they'll be gone by the time I'd start. They seem to like me. I wish someone would just send me an offer.

More of the same

Monday Jan. 31st 2011
I do like crazy hats, square scarves, and scarves in general.
Friday Jan. 28th 2011
Yes to wide brim fedoras on women!
Monday Jan. 24th 1011
The possibilities of the hybrid sweater coat. Is it still technically just a cardigan?

Catching up on the Sartorialist

Monday Feb. 21st 2011
This I think I could do.

Sunday Feb. 20th 2011
The ribbons are beyond what I could pull off, but I like the romantic disheveled look of it. I want to say the colors are too bright, but my own rain coat is even brighter than hers.

Thursday Feb. 17th 2011
Ooo.

Roots, Progress

Bows and arrows, oh my

The Sartorialist Tuesday March 8, 2011. See Hermes Fall 2011.

I could see myself carrying a quiver of arrows...

Red scare, pt.3

One more tidbit.

When Duf Sundheim mentioned that 50% of the income tax collected in California comes from 144,000 individuals, someone hooted and shouted, '...and it's not enough!"

Yes, Mr. Sundheim allowed, globalization has caused a problematic redistribution of wealth. Taxes can be used to compensate for that to some degree. No argument there. But when you're making obscene amounts of money, you don't make that much money every year. So, when half your tax base has wildly variable income, your state budget becomes wildly variable -- especially to predict.

He didn't suggest we shift more of the tax burden to the incomes of the rest of us; he pointed out that thanks to prop 13 our property taxes are pretty out of whack (and I have to say, I agree with him there). Property, unlike income, is pretty stable and has the benefit of being unable to move out of Cayman Islands when it strikes it rich. I don't want to kick little old ladies out of their homes, but the situation is dire. Without more money for education, we're screwing over generations of future Californians. Not to mention the rest of our social services.

Thank you, Johnny Cash Radio

New music shopping list:
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Ink Spots
Marty Robbins
Norman Greenbaum (Spirit in the Sky)
Ray Charles (I've Got a Woman)
Bruce Springsteen
The Animals (House of the Rising Sun)

Don't think twice, it's alright

Heard this on a Fresh Air interview of Suze Rotalo, Bob Dylan's girlfriend of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) fame and fell in love with it.



It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you anymore
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, babe
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

Red scare, pt. 2

Duf Sundheim was speaking in PoliSci 179 this Wednesday, a class my sister is taking and I am crashing! (Webcast here). Basically he's a big wig in the California Republican Party and presided over it for a few years. He was also a key player in the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and masterminded the election of Schwarzi in his stead. Even more exciting for the crowd of Berkeley undergrads, he is an alumnus of Stanford.

...And yet I found him one of the most reasonable speakers I've heard in that class so far. (I missed a few -- I hear last week's Charles Wiley was awesome). Sundheim talked mostly about education and what's wrong with it in California. I have to admit, I agree that the thought of 80¢ on the dollar spent on education is being paid into pensions for teachers (or professors) who aren't even teaching any more. He mainly stressed the need to conceptualize education in terms of the individual, rather than the institution. I'm not totally clear on what that means, but the idea of focusing more attention on how to get kids what they need out of education, rather than thinking in terms of test scores and The School, seems ok to me. Maybe this is all part of some republican plot for smaller government.

One kid whose parents were teachers mentioned that try as they might, they just couldn't get through to some kids. Is it because they're not good enough at their jobs? Is it the lack of support for education at home? Is it...??? Mr. Sundheim agreed that 80% of the opportunity for education is tied up in a kid's home life. I find the number generous, but the concept not entirely unreasonable. Sure, it makes a big difference if your parents and the people in your life generally value education. I'm more uneasy, though, with the conclusion he draws -- that if a kid doesn't feel inclined to go to college, we should respect that -- craft education around what they actually want to do with their lives. I know we have technical high schools and all that, and I recognize that there are trades and unskilled labor that needs to be done, and we need people able to do them, but the idea of shunting someone that young out of the track to higher education scares me. Am I just biased because that's the way of life I know best? Would classes more immediately useful to employment actually keep them more engaged in school?

I don't know.

Red scare, pt. 1

What was otherwise a pleasant trip to Seattle last week was tainted by a chapter in the Microeconomics textbook I've been reading for this online class which discussed the impact of government intervention in the free market. Let's be clear -- I despise this textbook. I find its conversational tone insulting and its presentation of the material one-sided, but I still feel like it's important to know about this stuff, and I do find it interesting.

So we talked about per-unit taxes, price ceilings and price floors. All the examples in the book are of course very pro-market and pro-globalization, but their discussion of minimum wage really gets me. Looking at minimum wage from a supply and demand point of view, we have this (very simplified) example:


The red line shows the supply of labor available for a given wage; the blue line shows the demand for employees within the same wage range. The grey point is the market price for wages -- the point at which the demand for employees matches the supply of labor -- in this example, $5/hour with 5 people employed. The black line marks the price floor for wages at $6/hour set via government legislation -- in this example, slightly higher than the market price for wages. At $6/hour, the supply of jobs (or demand for employees) drops to 4 jobs because employers can't afford five employees at the new rate. However, for $6/hour, 6 people are now willing to work and are interested in employment. This 'creates' a scarcity of jobs -- the gap between the demand for and supply of jobs, also known as the unemployment rate, marked in green.

The book claims that the potential effects of setting a minimum wage include the following:

1. an increase in unemployment because firms can't afford to hire as many workers at the higher rate


2. worse working conditions and cuts to career-building programs because firms take money from workplace niceities to afford rising labor costs


3. buoying the incomes of middle class teenagers who are not relying on their paychecks for subsistence anyway and therefore are not the primary targets of the increase in minimum wage.

I think the teenager point is total bull crap, and honestly what business that pays their workers minimum wage is actually bankrolling career-building workshops for their employees? The bit about work conditions can be regulated for separately. Even if it causes the cost of goods to go up, I think paying something closer to the true price for things is more sustainable in the long run. I can see concern about the drop in employment (in my example) from 5 jobs to 4 jobs, but saying minimum wage is responsible for the gap between the 6 people looking for work and the 4 jobs available seems unfair.

I guess what I want is an economic defense of minimum wage. I want something that can speak to the points that these no-regulation economists will bring up in relation to this and other issues of intervention without just getting all hot in the collar about it. I get hot in the collar already!

March resolutions

I have been noticing that blog posts have been shall we say few and far between. And I want to change that, so I am setting a new resolution as of this March to try to post a little something to at least one blog each day. May not always be here, but I want to get back in the habit. N'ahm sayin'?

Also,*nerd alert!* the gentleman friend's parents gifted me a snazzy new pedometer, which has inspired me to scientifically track precisely how much exercise I'm getting every day, which is in turn inspiring me to exercise more. Knowledge is power! ... Although I admit much of that extra exercise involves jogging in place while brushing my teeth. Still, I shall work off these extra winter layers by summer!

Not exactly rocket science

Oooo. I just found the best blog.

I think maybe I want to skip grad school and just read this blog all day.

...Or not.

Were you aware of it? vol. 37: Turkish man crashes own funeral

KONYA – Doğan News Agency (DHA) 'Everyone was shocked when they saw me,' says 72-year-old Durmuş Çıplak (pictured). 'Then I learned they had thought I lost my life in an accident. But I am still alive, thanks be to God.' AA photo

'Everyone was shocked when they saw me,' says 72-year-old Durmuş Çıplak (pictured). 'Then I learned they had thought I lost my life in an accident. But I am still alive, thanks be to God.' AA photo

A man returning from a fishing trip in the Central Anatolian province of Konya was surprised to encounter a group of mourners gathering in front of his house for a funeral – his own.

“Everyone was shocked when they saw me,” 72-year-old Durmuş Çıplak told Doğan news agency, or DHA. “Then I learned they had thought I lost my life in an accident. But I am still alive, thanks be to God.”

It was thought that Durmuş Çıplak had died after a cargo truck hit a septuagenarian riding a bike by the side of the road at 10 a.m. on Monday. The person, who was not carrying any identification, was badly wounded and was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

People in the surrounding area told police, who were trying to determine the man’s identity, that the dead bicyclist was Durmuş Çıplak.

Ahmet Çıplak, the man’s son, was then called to the morgue to identify the victim. The son identified the body as his father and began carrying the body home for the funeral ceremony when his neighbor called to say his father had just returned from a fishing trip.

The son then returned the unidentified body to the hospital, just as his father came upon the bereaved mourners gathered in front of his house.

The deceased cyclist was eventually identified as 70-year-old retiree Süleyman Bozer. Durmuş Çıplak attended the funeral.

**Courtesy of Hürriyet Daily News

California love

How is it that time goes by so quickly?? I am just back from Seattle, where it was cold, as in freezing, as in snow. But it was still great place. I miss the coffee shops and the greenery, but I've got to say there's nothing like coming home to California. Hearts.

Still no word about grad school, but I have had good chats with people at just about every school I've applied to at this point. I don't want to jinx my hopes by getting them too far up before official letters come, but no news means no rejections yet, and I'm happy at least about that. Normally I'd be basking in blissful ignorance, but I'm dying to make plans for summer at least.

Otherwise, lots of reading has been done. Lots of tooling about the greenhouse and lab -- for pay! Not as much botanical gardening, but I'm hoping to get back on that bandwagon.

I am trying to re-learn math what with this future math professor I'm dating and all. I tried pitching him the idea of helping me brush up on the math I'm reading about in this ecology textbook, but don't remember from 10+ years ago (or never learned at all), and he seems to think it will even be fun for him. Maybe I'll finally get to have that dating-your-instructor experience...

Seriously, where do all the hours go?!?! I want to have more art and relaxation time. And somehow also more productivity time. If peeps want to get to get some arts and crafts on this month, I am down. Sadly I have hardly been musical at all in ages, but I still have the best intentions.

February is for FREEDOM

I don't think I can muster the enthusiasm to start any more grad school applications.... which means I'm done!

I am slowly starting to realize how mono-minded my little world had become in the past few months, but February is the month to change all that!

February is the blissful month of ignorance in which I put off worrying about where or whether I got into grad schools because I can't know yet. February is when I can pick up my old art projects again. In February, I shall read books! I have plunged whole-heartedly into self-assigned homework so that I might not feel a fool when I'm back in school. I am plugging through the Primer on Ecological Statistics and a thick textbook on Ecology with a gorgeous cover. I'm learning about Microeconomics and I'm signed up for a botanical field trip to the Sonoran Desert. Seemingly unbeknownst to my sister, I am attending her political science lecture in which we are treated to a best-of series of previous guest lecturers. A holiday is in order, possibly to Hawaii, with Matt in the imminent future. I am going to see friends. I am going to do yoga! There is talk of Europe in the summer -- perhaps a jaunt in Portugal? Spain? France? Ireland? The Scottish Highlands? My slim pocketbook is the limit!

The past few months have felt a dim haze compared to the promise of this spring. Curiously, becoming all but caught up in the ebb and flow of the grad student co-op has left me still feeling the odd outsider even now that I've my own official key and am paying for the bit of their food that I eat. The clean, thoughtless distinctions obvious primarily to those on the receiving end remind me of being a contractor at Google. Still, I feel I serve a purpose, and, in my true fashion, I have managed to be up 7.5 workshift hours in just the third week of the semester.

In any case, February. Things are on the up and up.

Were you aware of it? vol. 36: Mama Pterodactyls

Age old rule of attraction: Male pterodactyls used giant head crests to woo the ladies, rare fossil find reveals


When it comes to trying to impress the opposite sex, men are often unable to resist showing off.

A 160 million-year-old fossil dubbed 'Mrs T' has revealed that dinosaurs were just the same.

Male pterodactyls used their spectacular giant head crests to woo the ladies, scientists believe.

While female reptiles had no decorative markings on their heads, the males sported impressive plumes of feathers, sometimes five times the size of their skull, which they used to show off to prospective mates.

It had previously proved impossible to say whether the remains of the reptiles, which lived alongside dinosaurs between 220 and 65 million years ago, were male or female, and 'sexing' them has foxed experts for more than 100 years.

The evidence comes from Mrs T, the nickname given to a female pterosaur preserved together with the egg she was about to lay.

Pterosaurs - favourites of Hollywood filmmakers - were flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, some of which grew as large as light aircraft.

Mrs T was a 160million-year-old Darwinopterus pterosaur whose skeletal remains were uncovered in Liaoning Province, north-east China.


Because she was found with her egg, scientists know that she must have been female.

The pterosaur had relatively large hips to accommodate the passage of eggs, but no head crest.

Other Darwinopterus specimens, now known to be male, have smaller hips and well-developed crests. Scientists believe these were probably used to ward off rivals or attract mates.

Dr David Unwin, from the University of Leicester, whose team describe the find in the journal Science, said: 'Pterosaurs, flying reptiles, also known as pterodactyls, dominated the skies in the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs, 220 to 65million years ago.

'Many pterosaurs have head crests. In the most spectacular cases these can reach five times the height of the skull.

'Scientists have long suspected that these crests were used for some kind of display or signalling and may have been confined to males, while females were crestless.

'But, in the absence of any direct evidence for gender this idea remained speculative and crested and crestless forms were often separated into completely different species.

'The fossil we have discovered, an individual of Darwinopterus, is preserved together with an egg showing that it must be female. This type of discovery, in which gender can be determined with certainty, is extremely rare in the fossil record, and the first to be reported for pterosaurs.'

Future pterosaur fossil finds in which the skull or hips are preserved can now help scientists to 'sex' the creatures.

Dr Unwin added: 'Gender is one of the most fundamental of biological attributes, but extremely difficult to pinpoint with any certainty in the fossil record.

'Being able to sex pterosaurs is a major step forward. Finally, we have a good explanation for pterosaur head crests, a problem that has puzzled scientists for more than 100 years.

'Now, we can exploit our knowledge of pterosaur gender to research entirely new areas such as population structure and behaviour. We can also play matchmaker for pterosaurs bringing back together long separated males and females in the single species to which they both belong.'

Mrs T is thought to have been laid to rest in the Jurassic mud that preserved her bones by a tragic accident.

She was killed suddenly in a traumatic event that broke her left forearm - perhaps a storm, or one of the volcanic eruptions that were common in northern China at this time.

Unlike those of modern birds, her egg was small with a soft shell.

This was not surprising, since a small, soft egg would require less investment in terms of materials and energy, said Dr Unwin.

Such economy would have offered active pterosaurs an evolutionary advantage and may have been an important factor in the evolution of giant species, like the 32.8ft (10m) wingspan Quetzalcoatlus.

**Courtesy of the Daily Mail.
See also: The original paper published tomorrow in Science.

Suddenly, it is 2011

It was pointed out to me yesterday that I have been absent from the world of excitement for a very long time, or I should clarify that to say -- the world of exciting things beyond grad school applications and the lots of dotting of i's and crossing of t's that comes with it. I will have you know that I did take a little holiday to be present at family functions, and I did have just the best ever jaunt up to Canada where I met the gentleman friend's parents (who are the epitome of darling and lovely) and some extended family (also fabulous people). I was further introduced to the winter highlights of Toronto, Detroit, and that southernmost Canadian city that is at least larger than the other cities slightly further south that for some reason don't count when one is determining which Canadian city is southernmost, Windsor.

In any case, the end is near! In a mere slightly more than two weeks, I shall return to humanity, and, hopefully, to posting more than once per month! Details to follow!

(Pictured above: Point Pelee, which actually is the southernmost point in Canada, although, in truth, this shot isn't the southern most point of it.)