Author Archives: gmcdavid
Back at apheresis
I made another platelet donation at the Minneapolis Red Cross today, for the first time since May. They went back to the vein I have used for 35 years of blood donations (almost exactly–I first donated at Stanford in the summer of 1973) and were able to complete the procedure. In fact, I was able to donate two units. There was some trouble with the needle at the beginning and the end, but it was mostly painless and I managed to nap for an hour in the middle of it.
A busy and productive weekend
Another Minnesota bridge!
Batman
mia_mcdavid, our son James, and I saw The Dark Knight this evening. Being quite ignorant of the world of comics, I knew much less of the story line than they did. However, I came away from the movie with one overriding thought:
Continue reading
About that salmonella outbreak….
Software upgrades
Extreme Scots
Via Agus Araile, where Wes commented:
Background: The Shetland accent is not just an accent. It is a separate and distinct sub-dialect of Scots English. It contains many words, and even grammar characteristics, from the extinct Scandinavian language called Norn, which was a variety of Norse spoken in the Shetlands and Orkneys before the islands were pawned to Scotland. The last speaker of Norn was said to have died in the 1850s. On top of the already diverse Scots dialect, the Norn influence places the Shetland dialect a few steps away from the Queen’s English.
Autism and brain networks
Standard Model of Sociophysics
From orgtheory.net:
The SSS [Stanford Superconducting Supersocializer] will propel local college sophomores at tremendous speeds into unfamiliar groups of people in an effort to plumb the structure of the elementary particles of social interaction. Despite the success of the standard model, there is much to be learned. The organization of the Quirks is of course well known, with some of the early triumphs of post-war research focused on the internal dynamics of the quirk-matrix (Up, Downer, Charm, Strange, Top Bloke, Asshole). The complex of interactions centered on W and Z remains wholly mysterious, however. The Liketons, too, pose difficult questions, though the recent discovery of observer-dependent YouTube effects has gone some way toward clarifying their role. Finally, the famous Biggs Hangeron also remains problematic, as it is not only notoriously easy to observe but in fact also impossible to ditch at parties.
From Cosmic Variance, where Sean Carroll uses a concept from physics to deal with a well known social issue.