Rambles Blog at Star Chamber

Scientists working with Strain 121, a heat-loving bacterium that lives deep in the ocean, recently revealed that it can not just live but thrive at 121 degrees Celsius. That’s 250 degrees Fahrenheit to you and me, or the temperature of a working autoclave that’s designed to sterilize medical equipment. These little guys don’t even break a sweat in boiling water.

At the same time, researchers in Antarctica have uncovered a cold-loving bacterium that lives at the bottom of an oxygen-starved lake in that coldest of continents, a place that never rises above a balmy 33 degrees Fahrenheit (see Extremophiles, Antarctica, and Extraterrestrial Life on the GNN site). Together, these hot and cold bugs are grouped under the label “extremophiles,” but nobody really asked them what they think of that name. It’s not clear they’re happy about where they live, for one thing. Anyway, I have it on good authority that they refer to us as “boring-ophiles.” The GNN article ends on this intriguing note.

Other research suggests that some methanogens could survive life on Mars. Scientists at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville have grown methanogens in Mars-like soil and under Mars-like conditions.

Actually, I’m pretty impressed that they can live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but that’s another story. I am convinced that there’s already life on Mars, because we’ve sent it there. The Viking and Pathfinder landers could not possibly have been completely sterile when launched, and who knows what stowaways might have survived the journey? I like to picture our brawny earthling bacteria hopping off the lander and throttling their pale, scrawny Martian counterparts. It would be great to find a thriving colony of our own bacterial brethren when we finally arrive in force on Mars. Who knows… they might even be holding little banners emblazoned with the words “Welcome Boring-ophiles!”

My friend Rhon has been working on his web site for a year or more, I think. He’s a graphic designer at our company, and a serious perfectionist, so I guess that’s to be expected. Check out his new site: Rhon Porter Studio Design. A lot of it is STILL under construction, but the illustrations he posted are really impressive.

When I ask Rhon about design sites that he goes to, one that he recommended was Design Is Kinky. Apparently they regularly feature work by lots of different artists, but the real churn is on the mugshots page where you can submit a picture of yourself and a link to your [portfolio/design] site. It’s a good example of how the web levels the playing field, but also makes the world more competitive. You’d look pretty lame if your mugshot appeared, but your site was really crappy. Most of the sites are pretty good, though, if a little cryptic in that what-the-hell’s-going-on-with-this-weird-Flash-animation kind of way. So many people!

Some months ago I described an unusual museum in England put together originally by the slightly mad Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter. Potter’s strange Museum of Curiosities apparently is in grave danger of being liquidated and may go under the gavel this fall if nothing is done. Apparently the inn needs more space for rooms. A gentleman named Richard Taylor posted a message to this site pleading for help and directing us to the
Campaign to Save Mr Potter’s Museum of Curiosities site. Eccentricity is rare in this world and should be preserved. If this museum is sold in small lots at auction, the individual pieces will remain, but the eccentricity will be smashed into oblivion. As Taylor points out on the campaign site…

On its own, a “box containing early Australian travelling salesman’s gin sample bottles” might be of marginal interest. But next to the “shoes worn by Charles Wykeham-Martin MP at Queen Victoria’s fancy dress ball 1845” and “a deformed perch” – it’s extraordinary!

Take a look at this exhaustive inventory of unusual loot and ask yourself where else could I go to see stuffed rats playing dominoes, smoking, and being raided by police? Want to help? If so, go here: http://mysite.freeserve.com/pottersmuseum/help.htm.

Making vaccines is a bad business. If you do your job well, your healthy customers may suspect that they didn’t really need that shot in the first place. And there are multiple ways to screw up: the vaccine might be ineffective, or it might cause an adverse reaction, opening you up to expensive legal attack. Then there are the business complications. If it surfaces that you developed a vaccine, but didn’t make it available for reasons of profitability, you will be pilloried by press and politicians. Altogether, the downside tends to outweigh the upside, so vaccine research hasn’t always been well-funded or hotly pursued.

Some recent research with the Ebola virus is very encouraging, though, and signifies the rise of the genomic approach to medicine. Viruses are recognized in our bodies by their surface coating. Suppose we just take a gene that codes for part of the coat of a disease-causing virus and stick that in another harmless virus? Then the harmless virus can be used to instruct the body about the evil one, just as the sheriff might wave an escaped convict’s shirt under a bloodhound’s nose. Sic ‘im, boy! Neat trick, eh? Read about it here: Fast vaccine offers hope in battle with Ebola. Here’s another good summary courtesy of Corante: But Did They Get A Cold?

Hey, check it out: blog fever is running rampant at work. With increased media coverage about how Google and AOL are taking blogging to the masses, now even the people who have zero interest in blogs at least know what the word means (more or less). Kristin and Mike now have blogs (Snowboard Girl and Mike’s Blog, respectively), and they’ve linked to some other folks I know. Of course Matt has been blogging for some time now, and Kim is a Live Journalist from way back.

It’s interesting to see each person’s approach to the question “what the hell will I write about?” Live Journal steers people, naturally enough, in the direction of a dear-diary kind of journal. Blogs can swing both ways: “My car broke down again this afternoon” or “Christopher Hitchens thinks Ariel Sharon is a butthead, and I couldn’t agree more.” Predictably, women are more willing to share personal details than men. Regardless of gender, I’m often surprised at the things people are willing to share online… I learn things in five minutes that I wouldn’t learn in five years’ worth of work conversations. For the most part this is charming and a good antidote to the closed countenance we generally show the world. But the real test of a blogger is: will you keep it up? It reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad.

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty’s sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat … If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year.

I’ve been working my way through Howard Rheingold’s timely book Smart Mobs, wherein he talks about the new and transformative properties of crowds that are in constant communication by mobile phones and other such devices. This new technology gives heretofore amorphous crowds a robust nervous system, allowing them to precipitate from the clear blue sky, strike like a fist, and then dissipate again. Rheingold likes telling the story from the point of view of smart crowd activists unseating the government in the Philippines. But Americans seem to prefer zany crowd stunts. Here’s a good article that Nabeel sent along about a flash mob in Texas: Stunts involving ‘mob’ silliness latest e-mail craze. Look for flash mobs appearing (and then quickly dissolving) near you. The overall effect is surprisingly similar to the life cycle of a cellular slime mold, in which lonely amoebas congregate, form a slug-like party on wheels, and then dissolve in a dusty sprinkling of lonely spores. That’s progress for you.

Slashdot, the tech news site with the tagline “News for Nerds. Stuff that matters”, generally reports on Cool New Stuff with a predictable editorial bent along the lines of Linux Rules! and Microsoft Sucks! When I read the comments, I get the feeling that the typical reader is a cranky Libertarian open source hacker that thinks most everybody else in the world is at least 25 watts dimmer than he is. But every now and then I see an item that surprises. For instance, look at this one, entitled How Do You Get Work Done? In it, a self-described procrastinator confesses his problem and asks for help. From the loud and prolonged response to this question, it’s clear that this is a common problem. Evolution may have equipped us with the ability to fight off a sabre-toothed tiger, but not a PlayStation and 150 channels of bad TV. Endless and immediately available amusement is one of the great troubles of our age. Here’s the original message.

I am currently a university student and have a major problem: being able to simply sit down and get work done. I can set aside a day to work, whether it is homework or contract work, and I will be lucky to have an hour done before dinner time. The only time I can actually get solid work done seems to be after midnight under a lot of pressure (ie. a deadline the next day) … I know many of you will have had the same problem. Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?

I found it almost touching to read through the advice. It’s a rare enough thing to hear a young man in a public forum say “please help me.” But when it’s a voice amid the cacophony of cranky Libertarian coders, and when a hundred people swoop in with sincere advice, well, I think that’s encouraging. Heartwarming, even.

Now I happen to know that you, dear reader, sometimes have a problem with procrastination. How do you fight it off?

So much time to squander, and so little time to squander it in!

Here’s another damned impressive illusion. The last time I posted a link to an illusion like this, I made the observation that after years of seeing the same crappy old illusions, we’re now seeing some dramatic new images. Go to
this link and watch the non-moving wheels appear to twitch and turn. If you really want to get annoyed, leave the image visible in the background of your computer and try to get some work done. It won’t be long before you close the wheel window, because those non-moving wheels are wiggling around too much.

I was trying to remember exactly what it means to “wear” a ship as in the sea shanty lyric

She would not wear, she would not stay
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
She shipped green seas both night and day
It’s time for us to leave her!

and in the process I came across this marvelous document:
Questions for Young Officers from Examination of a Young Officer, The New Practical Navigator (1814). They are study questions for the young men in the early nineteenth century who wanted to be made captains of one of Her Majesty’s ships. It makes me think of anxiety-provoking grad school qualifying exams. Imagine how you’d answer this question: “The sheers are along side, how do you get them in?” Sounds simple enough. I’m sure your answer would be quick and correct, as follows:

Par-buckle them in with their heads aft on the poop, and get the fore and main runners on them for guys; lash on two four-fold blocks, reeve the masting-falls, get girt-lines on the head of the sheers to steady the mast-head, and put heel-lashings on the sheers.

I love the metrical rhythm of incomprehensible technical jargon. Every age has its geeks, and I can just imagine an argument between two fifteen year old sail geeks of 1814: “You idiot! I can’t believe you would get the girt-lines on the head before you reeve the masting falls! Nobody does it that way. Geez, what a loozer!”

If you want to learn more about any of these terms, this website comes with a good glossary. And by the way, sheers are spars lashed together, and raised up, for the purpose of getting out or in a mast. And to wear ship is to change a ship’s course from one tack to the other, by turning her stern to windward. But you knew that already.