28 November 2006

Flawr-eye-dah

I've been prolific lately: IGES 2006 in FL



Crusin

Most of middle-to-late 2006 for me has been a muddle of mid-PhD doldrums. I was doing different bits of analysis, writing and speaking, but couldn't find the motivation to actually sit down and focus for long stretches on doing any actual science. For whatever reason I've been jumpstarted since about last week. Now I'm sitting down writing code and doing analysis for many hours every day (including right now at 9:30PM with a sapphire & tonic at my side).



Nothing else to report lately, other than I was embarrassingly psyched to be working on my genotype intensity plotter over the weekend.



Neato

kayak.com (an airfare search site) has a cool Google Maps app in their use profile page which lets you list cities you've visited. What I could remember off the top of my head (red dot is "home" — actually LHR, blue dot is place I'm going to visit — San Diego):



World_1



And a zoom in of the Northeastern USA (I tried picking cities representative of States, since obviously I've been to a lot more places than this):






Northeast



You can see the interactive version here.



26 November 2006

Better late than never

Nearly a month after the fact: Down and Out in Paris and Amsterdam.



No wonder Delta is bankrupt

I'm trying to organise a ridiculously complex itinerary for holiday travel this year, so I've been staring at the very useful kayak.com trying to book flights. The latest, and perhaps greatest example of the totally arbitrary nature of airline ticket pricing is the following:



Virgin Atlantic trip from London to LA, then Boston to London: $1400.
Singapore Airlines on the exact same plane operated by Virgin: $9000.



That's right, you could in theory pay a 5.5 fold increase in price, an extra $7600, just to have Singapore Air print your boarding pass.



24 November 2006

Kramer v Kramer

As most people have probably heard, Michael Richards (Seinfeld's Kramer) launched into a bizarre tirade during a standup routine recently where he repeatedly abused hecklers in the audience, calling them niggers over and over again. He's now flailing about to try to recover, but black audience members who have been interviewed on the Today show are demanding Richards pay them "compensation".



Excuse me?



What did he do that requires he give them money? I mean, clearly he's a racist ass, but that doesn't mean he has to go around paying people he offends. In fact, it demeans that deeper point when the people who were targets of the rant turn around and try to make a quick buck.



P.S. Does anyone still want to see pictures from Amsterdam and Paris? I've lost the motivation to finish that rig...



15 November 2006

Homage to Florida

Holla at the bløgosphere! I'm writing this post from sunny Tampa, Florida, where this year's International Genetic Epidemiology Society meeting is being held. Unfortunately I'm in my room doing some last minute work instead of sitting on the beach drinking piña coladas. This is what I get for leaving work to the last minute I guess. I can't really complain, though, since sitting in this hotel with some Led Zep cranked and a glass of Sam Adams O-Fest at hand ain't so bad. Plus, I'll probably take another break soon, and by break I mean go chill out on the beach.



This joynt seems to be designed for snowbirds, and by snowbirds I mean hugely fat old people from New England who cook themselves in the sun until they're an incredibly grim, wrinkly dark brown. It's them, plus the conference people, who are all genetic epidemiologists. I think you all get the picture here which is basically thus: grimness on sand.



Once I write this talk and give it tomorrow I'll finish my Paris/Amsterdam tabblo so y'all can see how sweet that trip was.



01 November 2006

The measure of a man

How nerdy am I? So nerdy that while walking along the Kerkstraat in Amsterdam I saw the Blue Dolphin coffeehouse, which not only advertises itself as the "purest" in the city, but was also personally recommended to me by friends who had been here. Did I immediately stop in to partake of the local delicacies? No, I kept walking.



Then I saw the sign in the window that said free wi-fi. So here I am, stoned and blogging.