TheBigUpshot

Peter told me that since he was ‘busy’ with ‘getting engaged’ he didn’t have time to ‘filter’ my ‘unique perspective.’ He’s very diplomatic. What he means is that my brand of cynical bullshit requires a censor, and he doesn’t want to do it today. Well, I suppose that means that you get the unadulterated scoop.

Herman Tse of the University of Hong Kong wrote a letter to Nature the other day. Academics like to think of themselves as being above economic interests. They are interested in the passionate pursuit of knowledge. But Herman describes the problem: to fuel that pursuit requires support, and support is granted based on a metric. That metric is usually publications. His quote sums up the perspective of anyone who gets paid for something they love: “It would be hard to argue that the pressure to publish is somehow better or more meaningful than the pressure to recoup economic returns.”

That’s fine. Money is not the filthy bribe given to sellouts in exchange for their souls. But the pressure to recoup economic returns brings an agenda that is… problematic for basic research. It’s a kind of censorship. Research that won’t be profitable (or that looks like it won’t be profitable) won’t get done. Solid state semiconductors and “transistors” probably didn’t look like profitable research to people working on vacuum tubes. The fact that it was interesting to someone meant it could be published. The publication metric, though not inherently more meaningful, encourages a different subset of things to get done. It’s not the perfect subset, but at least it is a slightly different subset.

Take Kinsey. Plenty of people take issue with his data and his conclusions. Plenty more people would take issue with his sexual habits. But prior to his work, there was virtually no reliable body of knowledge about what turns people on. Only wild speculation. His research was worth more than a lascivious perusal; it helped change a culture. Would it have been done in the interest of economic value? Sex can be monetized, but can sex research?

And at the other end is something that looked economically promising: nuclear fusion

“Those who have been in the fusion business a long time believe that it is better to go ahead with ITER than to hope another device will get there first, says Hazeltine. Decades of promises and billions in investment have left international fusion research in what he describes as a fragile condition. ‘Fusion science is on the edge of vanishing,’ he says. ‘I think we need to go ahead and turn this damn thing on.’”

I couldn’t agree more.

-The Jester

Tags: Humor, Science by Jester
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As you might have heard, I am in Germany. I like it a lot. The people here are helpful. And tolerant of my ignorance. I appreciate all of this. For the most part, German Engineering is everything I had heard and more. The trains and trams are on time and easy to navigate. The dorm room in which I am staying is nicely equipped and clearly designed to be very easy to clean - one could practically hose it out if need be. This is entirely unlike the dorm rooms I cut my teeth on in the states.

Those hexagonal beasts had so many nooks an crannies it was nearly impossible to get them clean. It was ridiculous. And two people in there! Three in some cases! Unbelievable. And expensive! almost three times the price of this little place I have rented for the month, even after the terrible exchange rate.

Yes, I will be here through August, but I’ll update as best I can.

Some fun lapses in German Engineering Sense: hotel shower faucet with a long metal handle (think kitchen faucet). It’s at elbow level, so is almost impossible to bump it when showering. Then try to reposition it quickly and brace yourself! You’re about to be scalded or frozen. Same hotel: both the room and building doors open inward and require a key to exit. The fire hazard is terrifying!

The other thing I’m not so fond of here is the bells. There’s a bell tower across the square form my room, and at totally random times (as best I can tell) it rings continuously for several minutes at a time. It’s like somebody just tells Quasimodo, “3:47? Sure, kid, knock yourself out. Good a time as any.”

I like bells as much as the next guy, but I’m thinking maybe ring it 4 times at 4 o’clock? That’s nice. Ring it off the hook for 5 min at 3:47? I don’t know. I thought that maybe it was a special occasion. Glockeläutentag or something. But no, it’s just how it works here.

-Peter

Addendum: today, the noon bell actually corresponded to noon, amazingly. What was great was that a dog down in the square below my window started to howl and didn’t stop until the bells did. It pretty much summed up my feelings.

Tags: Humor by Peter
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Since Peter is still lazing in Germany, we, here are going to discuss duck penises. Don’t question my Judgment! The publication of the discovery of the longest penis in the bird kingdom is worth noting. In the popular press article covering the discovery, Dr Raoul Mulder from the University of Melbourne is quoted as saying “I’m not fond of the ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ comments by the authors.”

I beg to differ. If the your scientific legacy is the discovery of the single longest penis in the avian world, most of which is penis free, then I would suggest some nudging and winking is called for. Just to be clear, we’re talking about a 42 cm (17 inch) wang on a duck that is, itself, no longer than 15 inches.

Peter appraised me not too long ago about an interesting lab conversation in which the following question was discussed: if child-rearing responsibilities were not biologically biased to one gender ot the other, would the existance of a penetrative sexual pattern result in a dominant/submissive behavior pattern elsewhere in the species’ behavior? Yes, that is how he phrased it. All hoity-toity like that.

Well, it seems that the bird family has good examples of this: birds exist with and without “penetrative sexual organs,” and lay eggs. Compare ducks to chickens. Chickens mate using the “cloacal kiss.” It’s not as romantic as it sounds. Just as when humans kiss, they form a continuous tube from one rectum to the other, when birds mate, they form a continuous tube from one beak to the other. No penetration. But there’s still dominance. Hence the phrase ‘cock of the walk.’ Ducks, who have the penetratative dynamic, still leave the female to care for the eggs.

So, evidently, penetration is not a necessary condition for dominance. I’m sure that’s good news for somebody.

-The Jester

Tags: Humor, Science by Jester
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Well, so much for that whole ‘this lack of posts is going to change’ thing. So far we’ve seen two posts this week, and it’s Friday. Peter’s currently in Germany and we should spend a moment speculating on just what he’s doing there.

What he probably should be doing is learning the German language by speaking with German people. What he probably is doing is sitting in a room much like his one room apartment. The only real distinction between the room he left and the one he found is that one is very far away from work. And what will he do in this room very far away from work? Work. that’s what he will do. We don’t have to guess.

So there he is in Bavaria, working on something or other (you can’t bet it is not something amusing to you or me). So: what is amusing these days? I’m amused by the runner who has no legs.

That’s not a joke, either. A double amputee is competing this year in the Olympics. Not the Special Olympics. I’m almost disappointed that he won the suit to get into the Big Olympics - wouldn’t it be great if the Special Olympics evolved into the main spectacle? It could become the technological and human struggle for synergistic greatness and achievement. I think that would be great.

It would be virtually the opposite of this little endeavor which is a human struggle for synergistic posting three times a week.

It seems I have to do everything myself.

-The Jester

Tags: Humor by Jester
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I figure if booze increases cancer risk, then I’ll drink plenty of antioxidants in my coffee to counter the effects. There’s no way around it - I would never make a good mormon. I’m not all broken up over it. But the fact is that I see using one indulgence to ward off the ill effects of another as clever rather than immoral.

That means I’d be a bad catholic, too. I figure even though adultery is a bad sin, and condoms are (supposedly) are a bad sin, the two (in this particular case) partially cancel each other out. I mean, if you have to explain to your wife how you gave her the herpes you caught from a prostitute but it’s not as bad as it could be because you avoided the sin of using a condom… I’ll bet that won’t go over well.

What was I saying? Oh - coffee and booze. Not sins. Cancer. Right. So, alert reader Jason wrote me a note saying that the NIH lists alcoholic beverage consumption as known to increase the risk of cancer. On the other hand coffee seems to help for breast cancer, anyway. And I love coffee! So maybe they cancel.

Wishful thinking?

-Peter

Tags: Humor, Philosophy, Science by Peter
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