Now Back By Popular Demand...

Well...Patrick's demand.

At present, I am unable to load one of my last assignments of the year, so while I wait expectantly for the server to be fixed magically, I will regale you with tales of my life.

Oral Presentation

One of the requirements of my program is an oral presentation course. There is a bit of work involved, but I do get free dinner. Tonight, I gave a talk on the basic history behind by "meteorological intellectual property" paper from Adrian Johns' class. It went over very well. I think the picture of Senator Santorum helped.

Nature News, Please Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter

Perhaps, the biggest science story of the day was the release of a study that claims that modern humans may descend from a hybrid line of proto-hominids and proto-pantroglodytes (chimps...). The Nature News story was a bit focused on the sexual aspect of this hypothesis:

"If such a hybrid population really did exist, the question remains as to whether it died out, or whether modern humans or chimpanzees (or both) are its descendants. It's very difficult to say, admits Reich. "The fossil data suggest — very tenuously — that it may have been humans who are descended from the hybrid population."

For some reason, human-like fossils far outnumber chimpanzee-like ones in the fossil record, making it difficult to see exactly who was sleeping with whom at the time.

So where does this leave Toumaï and his ilk? They may have sat in an evolutionary pocket between the initial split and the subsequent hybridization, Reich suggests, or have been around at the time but not involved in the inter-species carnality. "

Now, while I think I have heard of a few instances of fossilization in coitu , I really doubt that further fossils will prove anything. And as for "inter-species carnality," huh? Maybe, he's thinking of the polar-grizzly cross recently discovered in Canada.

Grizzly: Hmm, you're kind of odd-looking, but...what's that smell?
Polar Bear: Seal...
Grizzly: I think I'm in love.

One Hundred Million Miles Away, 1950 DA

Recently, NASA Public Affairs compiled a list of cultural works inspired by NASA research. One of my colleagues discovered that the asteroid he studied has inspired not only a song by Monster Movie but also an entire punk/metal band with obscene lyrics. The Monster Movie song is rather catchy.

Ditch Day

One of the wonderful things about being a graduate student is plenary indulgence from wacky undergraduate traditions. Here, the most wacky undergraduate tradition is something called Ditch Day, the full details of which I do not understand. Pictures are posted on the main Caltech web site. A few people in the pictures are in my physics class.

As far as I understand it, Ditch Day originated as a day late in Spring term on which seniors would leave campus collectively. Tradition specifies that "Ditch Day is always tomorrow." Tradition also specifies that any Senior found on campus on Ditch Day must be affixed to a tree with duct tape. Harsh but fair.

Originally, the departure of the Seniors was an excuse to trash their rooms. Some seniors decided to be clever and come up with ways of obstructing entry to their room or boobytrapping them. At some point, the protectors of the public safety stepped in and replaced the old rite with the new ritual of "stacks." A stack is hard to explain. It seems to be vaguely like a ScavHunt All Stars list. Several seniors come up with stacks and then teams of underclassmen do them. Like Road Trippers, those doing the stacks are often oddly dressed. Yesterday, I saw one of my professors being serenaded with the Vengagirls "Boom, Boom, Boom." One of my colleagues was serenaded with "My Heart Will Go On." I really don't understand the "stacks," but there does seem to be a lot of singing. And though Ditch Day is no substitute for ScavHunt, the day brought back happy memories of doing ridiculous things on the Quads.

Hooray for the Bear Flag Republic

For a brief period in the late 1840s, California was a sovereign nation. And while I spent much of my life as the citizen of former sovereign nations such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, there's just something romantic about being the citizen of a state with a big bear on its flag. It seems to say: don't mess with California, we'll maul you to death. Or perhaps it says, we like fish and cool mountain streams, so that's why there are so many sushi places with water features around here. Or perhaps it explains why there aren't any bears left in the state. They thought they saw their reflection in the flag, evaluated themselves as small, and left the state because they feared being trampled by jackrabbits.

Anyway, I've been a citizen for nearly a year, so now it's time to vote in Election #2, in which I get to vote for more people than Propositions. My representative is retiring on account of term limits, so I need to decide whether to back her handpicked successor. He seems to be a nice guy who values education and achieved much as mayor of a nearby town, but I'm really depending on his campaign materials for that, since he keeps loading my mailbox with them. I also have to vote for LA County Sheriff. I know this because I recently took a poll about the present LA County Sheriff and decided I really need to read more local news. I do read the LA Times a couple of times a week at lunch, but it just isn't enough.

Finally...

I'm staying in the same apartment next year. Two of my roommates are staying, too. So that will make my life somewhat easier.

Oh, well. My assignment still isn't loading. Good night.

ESA(20060518.1)