I found this Economist piece interesting - it's about the difficulties translators can encounter when trying to localize software. Most software works under the expectation that the user is familiar with technical jargon like windows or caches. That's a difficult hurdle in English but it's even more challenging when the target language doesn't have an equivalent term.

Given the choice, I would never use a version of MS Office more recent than Office 2000. It all comes down to memory: the software's core functions have barely changed in the last 15 years but it uses orders of magnitude more system resources.

As an example, I opened an Excel spreadsheet of about 10,000 lines (less than a megabyte) in both Excel 2000 and the free Excel Viewer. The latter software intentionally lacks nearly all functionality. Even so, it uses more than 12 MB of memory on my machine while Excel 2000 requires just 3 MB to have the same file open. A larger spreadsheet (multiple sheets, some with well over 100,000 lines, at a total of about 29 megabytes) opened in Viewer leads to memory consumption of about 109 MB while good old Excel 2000...well, it can't open that one since it's a docx and can't even parse it with the Compatibility Pack.

The newer file format was a genuine improvement so I really can't complain about that. I'm also using a machine with 8 GB of memory. That isn't a phenomenally large amount and I can handle a bit of software bloat. I'd still rather use the old, streamlined software any day, until I consider the other feature introduced in late 20th century Office versions:

This guy.

I've been trying out the scientific paper recommendation site Sparrho lately. It's one of those stupidly-simple designs: give it some keywords and it retrieves papers with those keywords. It can be personalized by labeling individual papers "relevant" or "irrelevant" in much the same way one might modify a Pandora playlist. The results are respectable. Sparrho has found a few papers which I probably wouldn't have seen as they're from distant fields. This one, a study about using filamentous bacteriophage to make what they call "covalently linked virus material", is a good example. I don't normally read about biointerfaces but it's an interesting application of phage to engineering.

The suggestions I've seen are better than those Google Scholar suggests. Google has also never provided me with the following suggestion:

Thanks, Sparrho. I will keep that one in mind.

There's gold in them thar science mines!

Today, during a lecture by NIH principal deputy director Lawrence Tabak, I learned something rather odd about how scientific publishing is rewarded in China. Dr. Tabak cited this 2011 article in the context of data reproducibility; it shows how researchers are explicitly paid by their host institutions to publish their results.  One first-author paper in Nature or Science could yield up to 200,000 RMB (about US $32,560), at least at Zhejiang University. For context, a Chinese researcher with a stellar, international reputation might make that much in a year at a Chinese university.* Authors are frequently rewarded smaller amounts depending on whether they're first author (other authors get less, though I wonder what the senior author receives) and the journal's impact factor.

There are at least two obvious issues here. The first is that the Chinese system essentially formalizes how scientific careers actually work. A first-author Science paper may not net a cash prize in most countries but it'll turn nearly any CV into solid gold. Most researchers don't get paid by the publication but they won't get paid if they never publish.** More worrying are the potential results of either system (that is, either explicit or implicit payment-per-publication). When jobs depend on whether the science works, the science is going to work, one way or another. That tends to be a problem when someone finally discovers that the science never worked to begin with.


*Source: a comment on a blog post about the 2011 article in question. See also.

**Paying scientists for individual papers mostly sounds like freelance writing. It's an interesting counterpoint to my rant about postdocs last week. Postdocs aren't really employees yet they're expected to perform as if they were for brief yet intense periods of time. Perhaps scientists are closer to, say, freelance bloggers than we may think.

flow instabilities in Felis catus

My sister forwarded me this recent issue of the Rheology Bulletin, notable for its article On the rheology of cats (starts p.16). I am no rheologist but my sister is a food scientist and the field is a bit closer to the type of material she studies. That being said, cats are not food but they are fluid. A selected quotes:

Fig. 2b gives an example of a lotus effect of Felis catus, suggesting that the substrate is superfelidaphobic. This behavior is usually distinguished from the yield stress that cats can also display, as shown in Fig. 2c, where the kitten cannot flow because it is below its yield stress, like ketchup in its bottle.

 If you read one paper about fluid dynamics today, make it this one about cats.

In lieu of a real blog post, I'm going to post some terrible selections from 3500 Good Jokes for Speakers by Gerald F. Lieberman (or is it Robert Lieberman, as some sites list it? They may or may not be the same person).  It's only come to mind lately as I'm compiling one of those memetic Facebook book-lists.

I own a paperback copy of this book. As far as joke books go, it's a genuine relic, stuffed with the material I'm guessing was stale by at least a decade or two when the book was published in 1975. With that said, the collection consistently creates a cultural atmosphere, like a museum diorama of a circa-1961 lounge where men in carefully-considered suits smoke cigars and avoid pain.

Some selections:

• I'm a stooge to no one man. I free-lance. 
• The room they gave me was so small every time I bent over I rearranged the furniture.
• You can tell the age of a horse by the teeth. But who wants to bite a horse?

OK, that last one isn't too bad.

I went to a poster symposium on the VCU medical school campus today. All the presenters were postdocs; the event was intended to coincide with National Postdoc Appreciation Week (see also: my rant in yesterday's blog post). A few highlights:

• A postdoc from the Physics department told me about the jellium model. 
• A postdoc from Pharmacology and Toxicology (and a former member of the personal development class I took this past Spring) told me about use of a DAGLβ inhibitor as a treatment for pain and inflammation. 
• Another postdoc from the same department talked with me about a novel plant-derived chromone compound which may be useful in treating glutamate excitotoxicity.
• Free lunch

And a few problems, since nothing is ever perfect:

• Visitors appeared to be other postdocs - I didn't see many faculty, but I'm also not familiar with everyone on the medical campus. Postdocs are generally at a career position where they have accumulated extensive knowledge and have had more than a few opportunities to present it, so I'd argue that less advanced researchers (graduate students, or hey, even undergrads) would get more out of an event like this than they would from a symposium of their fellows.
• Just a single poster was present from the Microbiology and Immunology department. I know that department has at least ten postdocs right now. It would have been nice to see more variety among the physics and biochemistry research.

Long days in the science mines

I heard this NPR piece about postdocs in the biomedical sciences today (correction: I started ranting about it halfway and didn't hear the second half). The basic idea is that, at least in this field, postdoc positions are rare, the researchers filling those positions are overworked and poorly compensated, and the situation isn't going to improve anytime soon. None of this is news to anyone doing biomedical research, whether they're a current grad student or a senior investigator. They know how the system works now.

OK, so "works" isn't the right work. This system is blatantly coercive. It takes advantage of the desire to do real, productive research and transforms that desire into raw labor. It's like a gold rush long after the rich veins have been depleted: you're still left with a bunch of laborers who can swing a shovel but won't strike it big anytime soon. Why not put them all to work more-or-less indefinitely? Otherwise, whole branches of science become ghost towns (though that's happening as well, and for similar reasons).

Part of the issue revolves around what postdoctoral researchers really are, at least in an official context. The NPR piece puts it like this:

The entire system is built around the false idea that all these scientists-in-training are headed to university professorships.

It's true that postdoctoral positions are intended as training. The NIH says they are "...engaged in a temporary period of mentored research and/or scholarly training..." as a means to a career goal. The postdocs I've talked to have expressed how this leaves them stuck between the role of a student and that of a mature, capable researcher. At universities, this means they don't get any of the benefits of studenthood (i.e., acknowledgement that specific training goals need to be met) but they certainly aren't university staff. It's often unclear who they really work for or whether they're even employees.*

In the end, we're left with more than 40 thousand people forced to sacrifice their intellectual and economic independence for years on end. This isn't just about the value of a doctorate. It's about a massive societal disconnect: science is something that everyone wants to do but no one wants to pay for.

Somehow, I'm remaining optimistic.


*That article is from more than a decade ago but I believe much of it still applies.

Not Amsterdam. Not Düsseldorf. It's Ochtrup.

OK, back to the recent travel recap! To review: the time is August 16 - about a month ago - and the place is Ochtrup, Germany. It isn't a place the lady and I would normally visit but we have friends who live there. That's not to say it isn't worth visiting: the area is authentically pastoral and rich in distinct agricultural character (i.e., hay hotels, which I will discuss later).

Downtown Ochtrup.

A flyer for the Schützenfest. I'm told it is a critical element of the local social (read: drinking) calendar.

Through a mirror, darkly, but only because it was a bit overcast.

Ochtrup isn't far from the border with the Netherlands, so it's also not far from the border city of Enschede. This city is famous for a fireworks warehouse explosion nearly 15 years ago but we primarily went there for the large outdoor market and the curious sensation of seeing all the road signs switch over from German to Dutch with little notice. It doesn't help that stop signs in the Netherlands stay STOP on them.

The market at Enschede. I'm not sure what those twisty metal structures are but the birds sure like them.

The lady finds her Backfisch. This market had more fresh fish than you could shake a squid at.

Here's some of that fish!

It's not all seafood. There are also buttons.

Also present: fries, the potato kind. They're just called patat, giving the impression you will be sold an entire potato.

Not shown: that evening, which I spent drinking with some delightful old ladies. They do enjoy their schnapps and bolle (the latter is primarily sparkling wine with fruit in it, much like sangria).

The next morning was time for a visit to the Ferienhof Laurenz. It's a working farm with a restaurant, accommodations (including the aforementioned hay hotel, which is essentially a hay loft one can legally sleep in), gift shop, and friendly animals. After an excellent brunch, we visited all those attractions, but mostly the animals. Farm tourism is a force of nature in Germany to an extent that's difficult to describe, but if you've ever visited Lancaster, PA then imagine that area's tourism strategy without its dependence upon religious minorities but with a greater emphasis on an ambiguous rural way of life.*

The brunch room. It's ready for Pinterest. Observe the many eggs.

This cow is artificial.

Do not assume the cow is alive.

It's authentic! We would have purchased gourds but they're easier to get at home and difficult to get through Customs.

It's the Hay Hotel! It sleeps 40.

Hello there, goat. If you look closely, you can observe my reflection in the goat's eye.

It wasn't the right time of day for the Biergarten.

We stopped at the Dreiländersee after brunch. It's a popular lake, especially with camping tourists, though it's quite small - if it was any larger, it would be in the Netherlands (or Saxony, at least).

You can't quite See it yet.

Aha, there it is. The Dreiländersee, that is.

Next time: it rains quite a bit and we take a train back to the lowlands.

Bonus photo: Dutch home goods.

*I think this may be referred to as Hofleben in more than a few places, at least in the context of a Bauernhof (a farmstead). Hofleben looks like it can also mean "court life". Either way, your current lifestyle is likely not one of Hofleben.

It's been interesting to see the new features getting added to Google Now since I traded in Apple for Android more than a year ago. Some of the features, like traffic and weather updates, are genuinely useful. Others are less useful to me but are innocuous: my phone tracks any stock ticker I search for, even when I search for an acronym which is coincidentally listed on the NASDAQ. A few issues irritate me enough for a complaint-heavy blog entry:

1. Flight updates. I'm still getting updates about flights I took weeks ago. On other occasions, notifications have contained incorrect flight times or have referred to the previous day's flight. These updates are misleading and distracting.
2. Automatic directions. Ostensibly, this feature exists to grab directions to places where you want to go. In practice, it provides me with directions to every restaurant and attraction I've googled in the past day. Even worse, if I drive out of the state, Google Now starts suggesting trips to every now-local place I've visited in the last year. Some of those directions may be useful but they're difficult to extract from the list of false positives and routes I already know well. To make matters worse, Now tries to assign names to locations but usually can't guess if they're gas stations or office complexes (usually, they are neither). A street address would be just fine!
3. Limited customization. The Google "cards" aesthetic is one that trades in minimalism. It works best when images are bold and lists are short. This is hard to accomplish when Now becomes a list of New Content Available. The problem could be easily solved with a single setting to control how many different items a card can hold, but the whole system is Apple-like in its planned simplicity. 

That being said, I like the overall Now concept, even if it's still reminding me about events in Amsterdam I couldn't see without a rather expensive plane ticket.

Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn't as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round of unwritten letters is on me.

- a snippet of Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man by Ogden Nash

Slay the beasts

Here's a nice thing to try the next time you're feeling overwhelmed, just like the feeling I've had a touch of lately, as with most Septembers:

1. Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it.
2. List 8 to 10 of the projects requiring your attention on the right side of the page. List them in the order they come to mind. No job is too small! If it's a pressing concern, it belongs on the page, whether it'll take an hour or a solid week to get done. If you can't think of that many tasks, write what you're planning to have for dinner instead.
3. Pick out three of those tasks as the Most Pressing. These aren't the most important or immediate tasks - you're not making an Eisenhower Matrix here - but they're the biggest stressors. Circle them, star them, number them, or highlight them in neon and gold. These tasks are in your sights now.
4. Pick out a time to work on these tasks. Here's the fun part: you should choose a time when you wouldn't normally work on such a thing, but the total elapsed working time can be as short as you'd like. You have three tasks to focus on, so you can even break them up into This Evening, Tomorrow Morning, and Tomorrow Evening. Write that time on the left side of the paper next to each of the three tasks. Then, when that time arrives, get to work! Even a five-minute interval is fine if you use it to organize and record your thoughts about a project.
5. Repeat as necessary!

The goal here is not to use this activity as a task manager. Rather, it's intended to provide reminders about the work we're focusing on, how we feel about it, and how eminently feasible it is. It's far too easy for even the smallest projects to grow into mythical beasts when left to roam through the recesses of our minds. Remaining aware of the work keeps it in perspective.

I've never really found a single time-management strategy which balanced the immediacy of day-to-day responsibilities with the Sisyphean toil of long-term projects. That balance is especially difficult to manage in academic environments. Between unruly faculty schedules, unpredictable experiments, and students who really ought to ask for extra help, even minor projects can rapidly evolve into Minotaurs. The existing time-management philosophies usually go just half-way. Structured Procrastination is one example: it seeks a similar stress-management objective to what I've mentioned above but exists in the minefield between "don't sweat the small stuff" and "my ambivalence has alienated everyone around me". Professional philosophers may find this method ideal. I find it difficult to implement.

Though, to be fair, everything's procrastination when there's something else you should be doing. Perhaps the key is just to trust that you'll get that Something Else done in time, and that you should be doing what you're doing now.

The music for today is Wintersleep - Astronaut because it has been stuck in my head all morning.

This song has always caused me to picture a heated, ideologically-questionable barroom debate, perhaps between opponents who are only preachers and astronauts in appearance and demeanor.

Not Amsterdam. It's Düsseldorf.

The lady and I got into Essen with flexible plans. They looked much like this:

• Visit friends
• Visit Düsseldorf
• Find sushi
• Visit Ochtrup* 

The first step was in progress by Friday so we started in on the second. That's the easy part - it's just a short train ride from Essen. The third may seem surprising if you're unaware of Düsseldorf's large Japanese population and selection of all-you-can-eat sushi places. They're high-quality and quite inexpensive. They're also quite popular as our first choice was far too busy to ever have a table ready. Luckily, there was a great alternative not far away (the rain had finally caught up with us, so we didn't feel like searching for long). It's an atmospheric, classically German city, especially if you don't mind Nordrhein-Westphalia serving as the representative of the whole country.

In Essen, waiting for the right train.

In Düsseldorf. You can tell because they sell gazpacho in bottles (don't believe me about that - it's a novel thing to do in most places).

There's that rain again.

"What's Beef Burgers". There isn't a question mark so I don't think it's interrogative.

This building may be competing with Philadelphia's Comcast Center for the title of Most Sinister-Looking Tower.

We made it to the Rhein and had some Spaghetti-Eis (not shown, but it looks like this).

The trees by the river had managed to survive all the recent volatile weather.

The Oberkasseler Brücke. It's technically the oldest bridge in the city if you ignore how it was rebuilt in the 1970's.

Looking out at the river to see where it's going today.

Back to Essen and to this wonderful place. 

Next time: To Ochtrup.

*What's an Ochtrup, you ask? It's a small town. It's right here. They make ceramic whistles there called "nightingales". They don't look like birds but they sound like them (the ceramics, not the people of Ochtrup).