Update Follow-Up

Carlo posted a comment on the previous post here, and a post on his own blog describing the importance and benefits of blogging, in the context of a biology PhD as both he and I are immersed in. He raises some excellent points, and I highly recommend you read what he has to say in his own words.

One point that I think I mentioned in passing in the previous post, and that Carlo also covers, is the need to restrict blogging and similar quasi-procrastination in time and effort devoted, to avoid taking away from "real" work. I've got a few minutes here between lunch and a meeting, and the other activities I need to get done today all require hours-long blocks of time, so I don't feel this little post is stealing time from proper work.

It's moments like this that I will be using for blogging. I often work at school until quite late; over the last few weeks I've arrived at home, with thoughts of a late dinner on my mind, at 10:00pm or later. I'm not complaining about the work-load, but I am trying to explain that I don't normally have evenings available for longer, more carefully composed posts.

Update

Sorry I haven't been updating this place AT ALL for the last several weeks, and only intermittently for the previous several months. "Busy" isn't really the right descriptor; I have been rather busy, very busy in fact, and over the last four weeks I've probably been averaging close to 65 or 70 hours per week of work. Writing, mostly, which goes towards explaining my reluctance to engage in other written activities such as blogging.

So, what have I been writing? Two things ate up all of April for me. First, I had my PhD qualifying examinations in mid-March. I passed the verbal part, not the written part, so I had to re-write the written part and give that to the examination committee in mid-April (i.e. I had a month to redo it). Since that was rather critical to the course of my degree and my project, I devoted rather a lot of time to it, both writing the document in question and reading buckets of material to go into that document. Second, the busy and non-overlapping schedules of my advisory committee (my PhD advisor plus three more professors) meant a full committee meeting by the end of the Winter 2008 semester (January to April) would not be possible, so I wrote a document in lieu of a meeting. Basically, this was a combination of describing what I'd achieved during the previous year or so, plus my detailed plan for my summer field work this year. Combining these makes sense, as most of what I'd been working on since last summer has been towards getting ready for this summer.

Please permit me a small tangent here: for some reason, many people seem to assume that as a student (a grad student) I do not "have school" in the summer. Nothing could be further from the truth - my PhD project includes a large and important field-work component, collecting invertebrate animals from various places, most of which happens in the summer, when the animals in question are actually out there, running around. So I would appreciate it if people would stop asking me if I'm getting a summer job, or going on vacation, or other such nonsense that rarely applies inside the ivory tower.

Anyways, yes, I've been quite busy with writing over the last few months, and I've neglected this place. Sorry about that.

At this point, I've got a very exciting summer ahead of me, but also some pretty serious issues. I've been deep in one of the supposedly-only-two low periods of my PhD, and I've been asking myself some pretty serious questions about what I'm doing and why. I've also been annoying some of my friends by whining to them about such things. As of right now, I have passed my qualifying exams though I need to register for a couple of courses (they'll be in the fall), and I'm going to be heading out on a big trip to collect, er, bugs mostly, in early June. The next four weeks will be more intense work getting ready for the field, mostly ensuring that the methods I plan to employ in the field are likely to get me useable results.

I haven't abandoned this blog, I've just been undermotivated to post here lately. I'll try to bring the level of activity up around here to something above comatose.

Sexy Snakes

Sorry for the lack of activity around here, I've been pretty busy with PhD stuff (i.e. my life) lately. However, one of the most enjoyable aspects of my PhD is the abundant fieldwork I get to do. With the weather improving steadily around here, I've been out in the University of Guelph Arboretum to collect assorted invertebrates. I need to clear up some methodological questions before my away-from-Guelph field season, which is approaching rapidly.

Anyway, on my way back from clearing my beetle traps I nearly literally stumbled on a tangle of garter snakes (Thamnophis sp.), which I think was a mating tangle (perhaps these are referred to as "mating balls"?). Does anyone know what species these might be? I gather there are lots of colour-pattern variants among species of garter snakes, and I couldn't find a good picture that resembles these guys. There was one larger individual, possibly a female, in the middle of a cluster of perhaps seven or eight individuals, most of whom were smaller. The largest was about a meter long and maybe 2cm diameter, with others down to about 40cm x 1cm. I stood on a small patch of boardwalk and just watched them for about ten minutes, and snapped many pictures. I also recorded a few minutes of video; if I can figure out software issues I'll try to post it to YouTube and to then here. This happened around 12:30 today, so the lighting is pretty boring, just high-in-the-sky bright sunlight on a forest floor covered with rather uniform and drab-coloured dead leaves. I hope the snakes are fairly clear in these pictures.

Some of my favourite pictures:

The large individual coming down from the top of the picture poked around for a bit then joined in the action. A large, dominant male, perhaps?

The mating tangle about five minutes after the previous picture was taken. I moved a few metres on the path to remove that tree shadow from the pictures. Note the cluster of tails - they were moving around, twisting over each other, for most of the time I was watching.

This guy was moving around in the dry leaves on the other side of the path, making quite a bit of noise. I suspect he (she?) could smell or otherwise detect the mating ball, and was looking for the action.

Another individual from the other side of the path, slightly larger than the one in the previous picture. That's the toe of my right boot in the bottom of the picture, these snakes didn't seem to care that I was there.

The Last of the Vikings

The Last of the Vikings

1961 Colour 102 Minutes

IMDB Link

Two Viking princes return home from their travels to find their father dead and a new king sitting on the throne. Learning that the current ruler murdered their father and now wishes to strengthen his title in an alliance with the Danes, the brothers try to rally the people in a revolt against the tyrant and return their family to their rightful place.

Star: Cameron Mitchell

This synopsis actually is not totally inaccurate. The movie opens with a fight scene – always a good sign. The two Viking royal brothers succeed in capturing another ship, carrying an ambassador from Denmark bound for the “King of Norway”. The brothers protest that there is no king of Norway, only bands of Vikings (i.e. barbarous warlords). They keep the ambassador for ransom, and sail home, only to find their home destroyed and their father murdered. Basically, there’s nobody at all when they get home, just burnt buildings.

The brothers learn what happened during their 10-year absence: treachery and betrayal by Prince Evil (I cannot remember his name; he was often referred to as “prince”), their father murdered without a weapon in his hand. This means he cannot enter Valhalla, afterlife of the Vikings (and hard-drinking bearded guys everywhere) until his death is avenged. Harald swears to Odin (pronounced here “Oh-DEEN”) that he will not rest until Prince Evil is slain by his hand. So far, so predictable.

The cool plot twist happens about here. Another Viking chieftan, possibly named “Vikran” or something similar, an older man with one eye, enters the story. He starts out with a winged helmet, but it is never seen again, sadly. His wife, who is basically a power-hungry bitch, nags him to betray Harald, sign a peace treaty with Prince Evil, and become king of the Vikings. Obviouly, Vikran likes this plan, but is rather cunning and intelligent, so he doesn’t act rashly. His nasty plans are helped by Harald’s great respect for the older chieftan.

Harald’s friend, Unnamed Foreign Guy (with mustache), comes up with a sneaky plan to attack Prince Evil in his big strong fortress. Vikran and a few other Vikings object to sneaky plans, but Harald trusts Mustache and they go ahead. I should mention at this point that the story is fast paced, and there are rapid cuts to different locations. The editing is pretty good, and the writing is excellent – the cuts make sense, provide interesting contrasts, and move the story ahead at a good pace. For example, there’s a minor battle as one of Prince Evil’s generals tries to put a quick end to the dispute by attacking the supposedly-disorganized Harald and friends. The Vikings win, ambushing the unfortunate general. This is followed by much carousing at Harald’s hall, including a fun scene of Guntar, Harald’s younger brother, getting drunk and dropping a wench into the beer vat. There’s a sudden cut to Vikran torturing Prince Evil’s general (who was captured), which provides a good contrast with the party scene.

So, Harald and Mustache pretend to be the ambassador from Denmark and his buddy, respectively, and show up at Prince Evil’s place. They convince Prince Evil they’re legitimately envoys from Denmark, and sign an agreement with Prince Evil regarding an alliance and a supply of troops to help hunt down this troublesome Viking, Harald. Along the way, Harald falls in love with Prince Evil’s cousin, the beautiful Hedri who is to be married to the King of Denmark as part of this long-sought alliance deal.

Prince Evil tones down his overacting for a few moments and hatches a plan to ensure Harald (whom he thinks is a minor prince of Denmark) doesn’t get down and dirty with Hedri on the voyage to Denmark. He holds Harald hostage (as a “guest”) and sends Mustache off with Princess Hedri. As soon as they’re out of sight of land, the Vikings drop their stolen Danish uniforms and get down to drinking – like any good Vikings should. Hedri is confused, but Mustache explains the situation, she’s a hostage, and they sail to “Vikun”, the Viking town (yes, the names are a little confusing).

However, treachery stalks the Viking camp, too! Vikran sets the real ambassador free, and sends him through the forest back to Prince Evil’s place. Guntar discovers the ambassador is missing, and takes off after him. Guntar gets captured, and tortured by Prince Evil, while the ambassador is still wandering the woods – you can’t really blame him, he was a chained slave for an unspecified period of time before being sent off and he’s in pretty rough shape.

The ambassador shows up just as Harald is planning to escape with Guntar, a fight breaks out, Harald pulls the nails from Guntar’s palms (he was semi-crucified in Prince Evil’s dungeon), and they jump into the sea. Everyone assumes they’re dead, including Virkan back at Viking-town, who declares the brothers’ long absence sufficient grounds for him to take over leadership and chuck Mustache in chains.

Just as Virkan is about to really consolidate his power, Harald shows up carrying his brother’s dead body, and then Harald kills the traitor Virkan. The Vikings get all worked up by the sight of blood, and head off to attack the castle of Prince Evil. Somewhere in here a raiding party of Prince Evil’s shows up out of nowhere (they’re actually quite competent, surprisingly for unnamed uniform-wearing characters) and kills all the Viking women while they’re bathing in the river, capturing back Princes Hedri. Seriously, this movie from 1961 totally shows a bunch of scantily-clad women getting zapped with arrows. The servant-girl Erica’s death scene is particularly moving, as she fades on the riverbank with an arrow in the small of her back and her blood dripping into the water.

A few score Vikings show up and panic the local populace in the fields around Prince Evil’s castle. Prince Evil and his military officers are of course quite confident they can defeat this rag-tag band of Vikings, but of course they’re wrong. Harald is PISSED and can’t be stopped. His Viking buddies are happy to help, with a rather cool siege tower that drops burning logs all over the defending soldiers on the battlements, followed by lots of fur-clad bearded guys running around with axes and swords. Huzzah! A very awesome fight scene happens, lasting about 20 minutes, with some quite creative cinematography: one shot is from a camera pointing at the sky as the seige tower rolls completely over it, and another shows a Viking taking an arrow through his left eye.

Harald kills Prince Evil with a thrown axe, grabs the girl (Hedri), and takes off. THE END.

Overall, I thought this movie was very good. The opening fight scene between ships was more like what I think would be realistic than most movies, with the decks of both ships crowded with angry men waving swords. Once the battle is joined and things are happening on one ship only, it’s very chaotic and thoroughly violent. This is characteristic of the movie as a whole. The protagonists are Harald and Gunter, but they’re never portrayed as the Good Guys. Rather, they’re the sons of a Viking Warlord, and they act like it. They’re both quick to anger, quick with a sword or axe, and generally violent and angry. The only reason presented for not going to war against Prince Evil is that this would cut into the raiding schedule – the alternative to kicking Prince Evil’s ass is presented by Vikran as going off to kick ass in England or somewhere else. There’s no sugar-coating of the Vikings here. Obviously, vengence is somewhat more attractive to a Viking than is yet another village to burn.

As I mentioned above, the writing, editing, and cinematography were excellent. The plot moves quickly but does twist in interesting ways, with only Prince Evil fitting a stereotype. He overacts quite a bit, but as bad guys go he’s lots of fun. Of course he dresses in black at all times. Harald was a pretty well-developed character, and his motivations were more interesting than “You killed my father. Prepare to die!”. Vikran was a good character, too, with his own schemes and plans. The action scenes were really well done, with numerous stunts that I don’t think the union would let a director get away with today – multiple guys get stabbed and roll or fall down stone stairs in the final in-castle fight scene.

**** (four out of five stars)

Conditional Pass

I had my PhD Qualifying exam this morning, and I passed, sort-of. So now I get to explain to everyone who wants to congratulate me what that means.

In the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph, the PhD Qualifying examinations are newly reformatted. There are essentially two components: an oral component, a two-and-a-half-hour question-and-answer session that I had this morning, and a written component, a 5-page research program proposal in the style of a NSERC Discovery Grant. The full, real NSERC Discovery Grant is the usual funding that covers operating expenses for most science professors at Canadian Universities. It's usually a large document that includes a great diversity of forms. At its heart, the Discovery Grant is a proposal to support research over a period of five years.

This morning, the oral component went well. I was told by the examination committee that they were satisfied with my performance. Good. That's the "pass" part of "conditional pass". The "conditional" part is I now have one month to completely re-write the Discovery Grant. The committee will look at what I produce in this month, and then decide if I have managed to bring it up to the quality they want. My previous written Discovery Grant was not good enough; they were not satisfied.

So, that's what I'll be working on for the next month. I'm basically happy, but I'm not through this process yet.

Monday Rant: Paper Dispensers

It's been way too long since last I ranted, and today isn't even a Monday. Call it busyness; my PhD qualifying exams happen next week, so I think I have a decent excuse (for the last few months, anyways).

Unlike some of my more esoteric previous rants, this one should be comprehensible to the majority of people with access to the technology necessary to read it. But, this is not a rant about anything computer-related. It's a rant about paper tissues and their means of dispensal.

1. Kleenex (and related trademarks of other companies).

For some reason, about half of the kleenexes (paper tissues, snot-rags, you have your own name for these) I attempt to pull from the ubiquitous boxen either a) stick to the next one in the box, thus giving me two and / or the entire box or b) pull out but do not bring the next one up to the box opening at all. This is annoying. Very annoying. The entire reason for having tissues that pull out one at a time AND auto-load the next tissue is so I can acquire ONE tissue rapidly and efficiently with ONE hand, every time. Both of these failures interfere with that goal. Considering the state of either my face or my hand(s) at the most likely times I'm reaching for a kleenex, this is not excusable. Fix your damn dispensers!

2. Paper towels

Some washrooms in public buildings, as are often found on university campuses, provide paper towels for the purpose of hand-drying after washing one's hands. Good, fine, see previous rant on air-blowers. The problem here, besides the usual obviousness like running out, is that the metal dispensers for these carefully-folded papers are close to useless. Rarely are they full, closed, and set up; more often they are overfull (a pile of loose papers on top, or, worse, fallen into the sink and useless), hanging open (and thus wetted and hence useless), or not prepped so one must reach into the dispenser (with wet fingers) to obtain the next towel. The problem actually gets worse when the dispenser is absent or not used (or broken): the papers are folded together, presumably by a machine at the time of production. Absent a rigid container, these designed-to-be-dispensed papers are difficult to grab with wet fingers, especially if one needs only a single paper, and they stick together by air resistance, causing the following two or three sheets to follow the chosen, top sheet and flutter to the floor. This is WASTEFUL, and annoying, particularly in some lab settings where airborne paper towels may land in or on sensitive experiments or materials. I don't need to disturb my carefully-measured dry powder (powdered charcoal and agarose are just two of the relatively harmless such materials I have nearly lost as a result of airborne paper towels), and I don't need a paper towel dropping on my notebook while I'm busy scrubbing chemical nasty off my fingers!

* In googling for images for this post, I discovered this method of folding is called "c-folded".

3. KimWipes

For those unfamiliar with them, KimWipes are the "delicate task wipes" that every laboratory in the world probably has in massive abundance, or wishes they did. They're basically lab-grade kleenex, designed for cleaning small spills of a wide range of chemicals (up to a couple of millilitres, I suppose), for cleaning delicate lab equipment (I use them on my dissecting tools), and similar uses. They come in square little cardboard boxen and are packed much like Kleenex, and have exactly the same problems as outlined above. However, whereas I might have mucus on my fingers when reaching for a kleenex (in most cases a gross if basically harmless material), when I'm reaching for a KimWipe, it is not at all unlikely that my fingers will have a) radioactive material, b) toxic/flammable solvents, or c) bug guts on them (hopefully in all three cases my fingers will also have gloves on them), and that my other hand, the one that cannot be used to stabilize the box or encourage the correct auto-loading of the next tissue, is holding something I cannot put down right now (the list of such objects is long and varied, and runs to live animals and / or fragile objects with commercial values exceeding my lifetime earnings potential).

* The above image includes a Kimwipe dispenser, a plastic (or, rarely, metal) rack that can be bolted to any vertical surface and hold a box of Kimwipes steady against pulls. These are mildly useful; I've met them in the past in some laboratories, but their problems are twofold: 1) The box can slide sideways easily, and often does when the pull is not perfectly orthogonal. 2) These simple little plastic racks are ridiculously expensive, often costing more that $40 each.

30

Today was my 30th birthday. I was born on March 3, 1978, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

This will not be a long and possibly maudlin retrospective, as I am too busy currently preparing for my PhD Qualifying exams which will happen in two weeks (March 18). These are a decidely non-trivial landmark in my academic career, and preparing for them has consumed a great deal of my time lately. Don't expect a sudden upsurge in activity around here in late March, either, as I'll still be pretty busy with lots of other PhD-type stuff.

Rather than blather on about my life or whatnot, I'll make two unrelated observations:

1. On my father's 30th birthday, he had completed his PhD several years earlier, was married, and had two children (I was the second). I have acheived none of those things (though, to be honest, I have no intention of achieving that last one, much as I appreciate that my parents did).

2. According to XKCD (which is never wrong about anything, evar!), the minimum age of a person I can date is now 22. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader determining the significance, if any, of this fact.