There is an East-West divide over stem-cell research and genetic engineering.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is always a God. It is just whether it is the God in the bible. Or the Cai-shen who will bring in lots of $$$ into the country.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Ice storm in baltimore...
[20:18] Fibji: just now G called me up to tell me
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: he had duck
[20:19] Fibji: boss is running like a little girl
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and it is goot
[20:19] Fibji: on the ice
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: oh
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: hahahhahah
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: that is cos he wear hao lian shoes
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and pretend he is european
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and shoes have no grip
[20:19] Fibji: hahahah
[20:19] ttw: because it is hao lian shoes
[20:19] Fibji: you can hear the Gmon giggling like a little girl on the phone too
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: @_@
[20:20] Fibji: I am surrounded by little girls!
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: yeah
[20:20] Fibji: 2girls1cup
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: =_=
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: he had duck
[20:19] Fibji: boss is running like a little girl
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and it is goot
[20:19] Fibji: on the ice
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: oh
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: hahahhahah
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: that is cos he wear hao lian shoes
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and pretend he is european
[20:19] ttw/Meebo: and shoes have no grip
[20:19] Fibji: hahahah
[20:19] ttw: because it is hao lian shoes
[20:19] Fibji: you can hear the Gmon giggling like a little girl on the phone too
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: @_@
[20:20] Fibji: I am surrounded by little girls!
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: yeah
[20:20] Fibji: 2girls1cup
[20:20] ttw/Meebo: =_=
Monday, February 11, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
LA
1) Jamba Juice!!!
2) In N Out
3) Shahrzad Restaurant
4) Zankou Chicken
5) the hotdog place in Hollywood?
2) In N Out
3) Shahrzad Restaurant
4) Zankou Chicken
5) the hotdog place in Hollywood?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
How to evacuate a building
Step 1: Take some solid fuel like paraffin with a low melting temperature and smoke point, and put it into the oven.
Step 2: Forget to check the temperature of the oven, and fail to notice it is set for 160 degrees C.
Step 3: Walk away.
Step 4: Notice that the entire lab fills up with smoke so thick that you cannot see from one end to the other.
Step 5: Attempt to put out smoke with fire extinguisher and watch helplessly as it continues to flare up.
Step 6: Call security.
Step 7: Evacuate building and watch as 11 fire engine trucks and one hazmat team arrives on site.
Step 8: Finally realize to pull fire alarm to evacuate remaining refugees in the building.
Step 9: Stand around and wait for fire rescue team to declare the building safe.
What is most embarrassing is that this entire incident was caused by negligence of a graduate student, not a (typically stupid) undergrad.
(not me, of course)
Step 2: Forget to check the temperature of the oven, and fail to notice it is set for 160 degrees C.
Step 3: Walk away.
Step 4: Notice that the entire lab fills up with smoke so thick that you cannot see from one end to the other.
Step 5: Attempt to put out smoke with fire extinguisher and watch helplessly as it continues to flare up.
Step 6: Call security.
Step 7: Evacuate building and watch as 11 fire engine trucks and one hazmat team arrives on site.
Step 8: Finally realize to pull fire alarm to evacuate remaining refugees in the building.
Step 9: Stand around and wait for fire rescue team to declare the building safe.
What is most embarrassing is that this entire incident was caused by negligence of a graduate student, not a (typically stupid) undergrad.
(not me, of course)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Menu for those who are sick
Porridge
Starting with a quart of chicken stock, add 1/2 cup of rice and bring to a simmer. Add 2-3 slices of ginger and a handful of dried scallops (rehydrated in hot water). Simmer below boiling for 1.5 hours.
Poached fish
Bring a big pot of water to boil. Add some coriander seeds, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, ginger and 3 garlic cloves, simmer for 30 minutes. Add fish filets and poach gently for 5 minutes.
Mix in 1 diced century egg to porridge before serving. Place 1 filet atop porridge, top with grated ginger, diced scallions and a drizzle of sesame oil.
Enjoy with happy tummy.
Starting with a quart of chicken stock, add 1/2 cup of rice and bring to a simmer. Add 2-3 slices of ginger and a handful of dried scallops (rehydrated in hot water). Simmer below boiling for 1.5 hours.
Poached fish
Bring a big pot of water to boil. Add some coriander seeds, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, ginger and 3 garlic cloves, simmer for 30 minutes. Add fish filets and poach gently for 5 minutes.
Mix in 1 diced century egg to porridge before serving. Place 1 filet atop porridge, top with grated ginger, diced scallions and a drizzle of sesame oil.
Enjoy with happy tummy.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
hmph
Today morning,
Broji: Are you or Bibji coming home next year?
Fibji: I don't know. Wassup? You miss us?
Broji: Oh, I want to buy another book next year and it is cheaper to hand carry.
Fibji: .............................................................................................
Broji: Are you or Bibji coming home next year?
Fibji: I don't know. Wassup? You miss us?
Broji: Oh, I want to buy another book next year and it is cheaper to hand carry.
Fibji: .............................................................................................
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Why UGs are annoying
I hope the ^&$%& UG who was hogging the seat at the cafe, pretending not to see people waiting for seats to have lunch, fail his test. Hmph.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Tortoise shapes evolved to avoid 'turning turtle'
* 28 October 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
FOR a tortoise, being upside down is at best ignominious and at worst fatal. So to avoid it, some species have evolved a quite brilliant trick - perfectly shaped self-righting shells.
Gabor Domokos and Peter Varkonyi at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary modelled the geometry of turtle and tortoise shells of differing dome heights. Those with very tall domes, such as the star tortoise, effectively have just one stable orientation, right side up. Put another way, a star tortoise placed on its back will automatically roll back onto its front, righting itself with little effort.
In geometric terms, this tortoise's shell is known as a monostatic object, one that has only one stable way of resting on a horizontal surface. Such shapes are incredibly rare in nature, the researchers say.
Other, flatter species, such as the Argentine snake-necked turtle, have two stable points - on their belly and their back - and must use their neck as a lever to flip themselves back over. Animals with medium height domes have the worst shape of all, say the researchers. They can come to rest at three distinct points, right side up and on either side of the shell, meaning they can get stuck halfway through a roll (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1188).
From issue 2627 of New Scientist magazine, 28 October 2007, page 22
* NewScientist.com news service
FOR a tortoise, being upside down is at best ignominious and at worst fatal. So to avoid it, some species have evolved a quite brilliant trick - perfectly shaped self-righting shells.
Gabor Domokos and Peter Varkonyi at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary modelled the geometry of turtle and tortoise shells of differing dome heights. Those with very tall domes, such as the star tortoise, effectively have just one stable orientation, right side up. Put another way, a star tortoise placed on its back will automatically roll back onto its front, righting itself with little effort.
In geometric terms, this tortoise's shell is known as a monostatic object, one that has only one stable way of resting on a horizontal surface. Such shapes are incredibly rare in nature, the researchers say.
Other, flatter species, such as the Argentine snake-necked turtle, have two stable points - on their belly and their back - and must use their neck as a lever to flip themselves back over. Animals with medium height domes have the worst shape of all, say the researchers. They can come to rest at three distinct points, right side up and on either side of the shell, meaning they can get stuck halfway through a roll (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1188).
From issue 2627 of New Scientist magazine, 28 October 2007, page 22
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Sigh
Exploring Ways to Shorten the Ascent to a Ph.D.
By JOSEPH BERGER
Correction Appended
PRINCETON, N.J.
Many of us have known this scholar: The hair is well-streaked with gray, the chin has begun to sag, but still our tortured friend slaves away at a masterwork intended to change the course of civilization that everyone else just hopes will finally get a career under way.
We even have a name for this sometimes pitied species — the A.B.D. — All But Dissertation. But in academia these days, that person is less a subject of ridicule than of soul-searching about what can done to shorten the time, sometimes much of a lifetime, it takes for so many graduate students to, well, graduate. The Council of Graduate Schools, representing 480 universities in the United States and Canada, is halfway through a seven-year project to explore ways of speeding up the ordeal.
For those who attempt it, the doctoral dissertation can loom on the horizon like Everest, gleaming invitingly as a challenge but often turning into a masochistic exercise once the ascent is begun. The average student takes 8.2 years to get a Ph.D.; in education, that figure surpasses 13 years. Fifty percent of students drop out along the way, with dissertations the major stumbling block. At commencement, the typical doctoral holder is 33, an age when peers are well along in their professions, and 12 percent of graduates are saddled with more than $50,000 in debt.
These statistics, compiled by the National Science Foundation and other government agencies by studying the 43,354 doctoral recipients of 2005, were even worse a few years ago. Now, universities are setting stricter timelines and demanding that faculty advisers meet regularly with protégés. Most science programs allow students to submit three research papers rather than a single grand work. More universities find ways to ease financial burdens, providing better paid teaching assistantships as well as tuition waivers. And more universities are setting up writing groups so that students feel less alone cobbling together a thesis.
Fighting these trends, and stretching out the process, is the increased competition for jobs and research grants; in fields like English where faculty vacancies are scarce, students realize they must come up with original, significant topics. Nevertheless, education researchers like Barbara E. Lovitts, who has written a new book urging professors to clarify what they expect in dissertations; for example, to point out that professors “view the dissertation as a training exercise” and that students should stop trying for “a degree of perfection that’s unnecessary and unobtainable.”
There are probably few universities that nudge students out the door as rapidly as Princeton, where a humanities student now averages 6.4 years compared with 7.5 in 2003. That is largely because Princeton guarantees financial support for its more than 2,000 scholars for five years, including free tuition and stipends that range up to $30,000 a year. That means students need teach no more than two courses during their schooling and can focus on research.
“Princeton since the 1930s has felt that a Ph.D. should be an education, not a career, and has valued a tight program,” said William B. Russel, dean of the graduate school.
And students are grateful. “Every morning I wake up and remind myself the university is paying me to do nothing but write the dissertation,” said Kellam Conover, 26, a classicist who expects to complete his course of study in five years next May when he finishes his dissertation on bribery in Athens. “It’s a tremendous advantage compared to having to work during the day and complete the dissertation part time.”
But fewer than a dozen universities have endowments or sources of financing large enough to afford five-year packages. The rest require students to teach regularly. Compare Princetonians with Brian Gatten, 28, an English scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. He has either been teaching or assisting in two courses every semester for five years.
“Universities need us as cheap labor to teach their undergraduates, and frankly we need to be needed because there isn’t another way for us to fund our education,” he said.
That raises a question that state legislatures and trustees might ponder: Would it be more cost effective to provide financing to speed graduate students into careers rather than having them drag out their apprenticeships?
But money is not the only reason Princeton does well. It has developed a culture where professors keep after students. Students talk of frequent meetings with advisers, not a semiannual review. For example, Ning Wu, 30, a father of two, works in Dr. Russel’s chemical engineering lab and said Dr. Russel comes by every Friday to discuss Mr. Wu’s work on polymer films used in computer chips. He aims to get his Ph.D. next year, his fifth.
While Dr. Russel values “the critical thinking and independent digging students have to do, either in their mind for an original concept or in the archives,” others question the necessity of book-length works. Some universities have established what they call professional doctorates for students who plan careers more as practitioners than scholars. Since the 1970s, Yeshiva University has not only offered a Ph.D. in psychology but also a separate doctor of psychology degree, or Psy.D., for those more interested in clinical work than research; that program requires a more modest research paper.
OTHER institutions are reviving master’s degree programs for, say, aspiring scientists who plan careers in development of products rather than research.
Those who insist on dissertations are aware that they must reduce the loneliness that defeats so many scholars. Gregory Nicholson, completing his sixth and final year at Michigan State, was able to finish a 270-page dissertation on spatial environments in novels like Kerouac’s “On the Road” with relative efficiency because of a writing group where he thrashed out his work with other thesis writers.
“It’s easy, especially in our field, to feel isolated, and that tends to slow people down,” he said. “There’s no sense of belonging to an academic community.”
Some common sense would also hasten the process. The dissertation is a hurdle that must be cleared, not a magnum opus, the capstone of a career. Princeton’s Mr. Wu has made that calculation.
“You do not want to stay forever,” Mr. Wu said. “It’s a training process.”
E-mail: joeberg@nytimes.com
Correction: October 4, 2007
The On Education column yesterday, about efforts to shorten the time it takes to earn a Ph.D., misstated the number of graduate students at Princeton University. There are more than 2,000 — not 330, the number of Ph.D degrees the university awarded last year.
By JOSEPH BERGER
Correction Appended
PRINCETON, N.J.
Many of us have known this scholar: The hair is well-streaked with gray, the chin has begun to sag, but still our tortured friend slaves away at a masterwork intended to change the course of civilization that everyone else just hopes will finally get a career under way.
We even have a name for this sometimes pitied species — the A.B.D. — All But Dissertation. But in academia these days, that person is less a subject of ridicule than of soul-searching about what can done to shorten the time, sometimes much of a lifetime, it takes for so many graduate students to, well, graduate. The Council of Graduate Schools, representing 480 universities in the United States and Canada, is halfway through a seven-year project to explore ways of speeding up the ordeal.
For those who attempt it, the doctoral dissertation can loom on the horizon like Everest, gleaming invitingly as a challenge but often turning into a masochistic exercise once the ascent is begun. The average student takes 8.2 years to get a Ph.D.; in education, that figure surpasses 13 years. Fifty percent of students drop out along the way, with dissertations the major stumbling block. At commencement, the typical doctoral holder is 33, an age when peers are well along in their professions, and 12 percent of graduates are saddled with more than $50,000 in debt.
These statistics, compiled by the National Science Foundation and other government agencies by studying the 43,354 doctoral recipients of 2005, were even worse a few years ago. Now, universities are setting stricter timelines and demanding that faculty advisers meet regularly with protégés. Most science programs allow students to submit three research papers rather than a single grand work. More universities find ways to ease financial burdens, providing better paid teaching assistantships as well as tuition waivers. And more universities are setting up writing groups so that students feel less alone cobbling together a thesis.
Fighting these trends, and stretching out the process, is the increased competition for jobs and research grants; in fields like English where faculty vacancies are scarce, students realize they must come up with original, significant topics. Nevertheless, education researchers like Barbara E. Lovitts, who has written a new book urging professors to clarify what they expect in dissertations; for example, to point out that professors “view the dissertation as a training exercise” and that students should stop trying for “a degree of perfection that’s unnecessary and unobtainable.”
There are probably few universities that nudge students out the door as rapidly as Princeton, where a humanities student now averages 6.4 years compared with 7.5 in 2003. That is largely because Princeton guarantees financial support for its more than 2,000 scholars for five years, including free tuition and stipends that range up to $30,000 a year. That means students need teach no more than two courses during their schooling and can focus on research.
“Princeton since the 1930s has felt that a Ph.D. should be an education, not a career, and has valued a tight program,” said William B. Russel, dean of the graduate school.
And students are grateful. “Every morning I wake up and remind myself the university is paying me to do nothing but write the dissertation,” said Kellam Conover, 26, a classicist who expects to complete his course of study in five years next May when he finishes his dissertation on bribery in Athens. “It’s a tremendous advantage compared to having to work during the day and complete the dissertation part time.”
But fewer than a dozen universities have endowments or sources of financing large enough to afford five-year packages. The rest require students to teach regularly. Compare Princetonians with Brian Gatten, 28, an English scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. He has either been teaching or assisting in two courses every semester for five years.
“Universities need us as cheap labor to teach their undergraduates, and frankly we need to be needed because there isn’t another way for us to fund our education,” he said.
That raises a question that state legislatures and trustees might ponder: Would it be more cost effective to provide financing to speed graduate students into careers rather than having them drag out their apprenticeships?
But money is not the only reason Princeton does well. It has developed a culture where professors keep after students. Students talk of frequent meetings with advisers, not a semiannual review. For example, Ning Wu, 30, a father of two, works in Dr. Russel’s chemical engineering lab and said Dr. Russel comes by every Friday to discuss Mr. Wu’s work on polymer films used in computer chips. He aims to get his Ph.D. next year, his fifth.
While Dr. Russel values “the critical thinking and independent digging students have to do, either in their mind for an original concept or in the archives,” others question the necessity of book-length works. Some universities have established what they call professional doctorates for students who plan careers more as practitioners than scholars. Since the 1970s, Yeshiva University has not only offered a Ph.D. in psychology but also a separate doctor of psychology degree, or Psy.D., for those more interested in clinical work than research; that program requires a more modest research paper.
OTHER institutions are reviving master’s degree programs for, say, aspiring scientists who plan careers in development of products rather than research.
Those who insist on dissertations are aware that they must reduce the loneliness that defeats so many scholars. Gregory Nicholson, completing his sixth and final year at Michigan State, was able to finish a 270-page dissertation on spatial environments in novels like Kerouac’s “On the Road” with relative efficiency because of a writing group where he thrashed out his work with other thesis writers.
“It’s easy, especially in our field, to feel isolated, and that tends to slow people down,” he said. “There’s no sense of belonging to an academic community.”
Some common sense would also hasten the process. The dissertation is a hurdle that must be cleared, not a magnum opus, the capstone of a career. Princeton’s Mr. Wu has made that calculation.
“You do not want to stay forever,” Mr. Wu said. “It’s a training process.”
E-mail: joeberg@nytimes.com
Correction: October 4, 2007
The On Education column yesterday, about efforts to shorten the time it takes to earn a Ph.D., misstated the number of graduate students at Princeton University. There are more than 2,000 — not 330, the number of Ph.D degrees the university awarded last year.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
I never notice there is a function "why"
>> why
Bill obeyed the very young good engineer.
>> why
Because a terrified programmer wanted it.
>> why
The not excessively young programmer wanted it that way.
>> why
Barney told a not very terrified and smart and terrified and bald and bald and tall and tall and young and rich and not excessively terrified and tall and not very bald and not excessively tall and not very terrified and very smart and rich and good and very tall and young kid.
>> why
To please some bald mathematician.
>> why
He obeyed some system manager.
>> why
Because I obeyed the terrified not excessively rich kid.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
It should be obvious.
>> why
It's your karma.
>> why
Pete obeyed him.
>> why
Joe knew it was a good idea.
>> why
I wanted it that way.
>> why
Because the rich mathematician suggested it.
>> why
You insisted on it.
>> why
Some terrified mathematician helped a tall and young and rich and good and young and rich and young and very rich and smart and very good and rich hamster.
>> why
Pete obeyed some smart engineer.
>> why
For the approval from me.
>> why
Because some programmer insisted on it.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
A smart programmer wanted it.
>> why
They knew it was a good idea.
>> why
Loren suggested it.
>> why
For the approval from Barney.
>> why
A terrified and good and tall and good and tall and bald kid wanted it that way.
>> why
I suggested it.
>> why
Loren insisted on it.
>> why
Barney suggested it.
>> why
Pete told me to.
>> why
The hamster obeyed some tall kid.
>> why
You told me to.
>> why
Jack wanted it.
>> why
A kid insisted on it.
>> why
I knew it was a good idea.
>> why
To please some hamster.
>> why
For the approval from some terrified and rich kid.
>> why
A hamster obeyed a not excessively terrified and rich kid.
>> why
How should I know?
>> why
Because Pete suggested it.
>> why
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
>> why
It's your karma.
>> help why
WHY Provides succinct answers to almost any question.
WHY, by itself, provides a random answer.
WHY(N) provides the N-th answer.
Please embellish or modify this function to suit your own tastes.
Bill obeyed the very young good engineer.
>> why
Because a terrified programmer wanted it.
>> why
The not excessively young programmer wanted it that way.
>> why
Barney told a not very terrified and smart and terrified and bald and bald and tall and tall and young and rich and not excessively terrified and tall and not very bald and not excessively tall and not very terrified and very smart and rich and good and very tall and young kid.
>> why
To please some bald mathematician.
>> why
He obeyed some system manager.
>> why
Because I obeyed the terrified not excessively rich kid.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
It should be obvious.
>> why
It's your karma.
>> why
Pete obeyed him.
>> why
Joe knew it was a good idea.
>> why
I wanted it that way.
>> why
Because the rich mathematician suggested it.
>> why
You insisted on it.
>> why
Some terrified mathematician helped a tall and young and rich and good and young and rich and young and very rich and smart and very good and rich hamster.
>> why
Pete obeyed some smart engineer.
>> why
For the approval from me.
>> why
Because some programmer insisted on it.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
A smart programmer wanted it.
>> why
They knew it was a good idea.
>> why
Loren suggested it.
>> why
For the approval from Barney.
>> why
A terrified and good and tall and good and tall and bald kid wanted it that way.
>> why
I suggested it.
>> why
Loren insisted on it.
>> why
Barney suggested it.
>> why
Pete told me to.
>> why
The hamster obeyed some tall kid.
>> why
You told me to.
>> why
Jack wanted it.
>> why
A kid insisted on it.
>> why
I knew it was a good idea.
>> why
To please some hamster.
>> why
For the approval from some terrified and rich kid.
>> why
A hamster obeyed a not excessively terrified and rich kid.
>> why
How should I know?
>> why
Because Pete suggested it.
>> why
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
>> why
It's your karma.
>> help why
WHY Provides succinct answers to almost any question.
WHY, by itself, provides a random answer.
WHY(N) provides the N-th answer.
Please embellish or modify this function to suit your own tastes.
Monday, August 27, 2007
I hate Mondays..
argh argh...
Side remark: ttw and i managed to get a huge ass Sharp 32US50B TV from my car into the living room on Sat somehow...
On Sun, we went to Joe's Noodle House for some serious Szechuan food.. I think ttw is still suffering from the mala-ness now..
Side remark: ttw and i managed to get a huge ass Sharp 32US50B TV from my car into the living room on Sat somehow...
On Sun, we went to Joe's Noodle House for some serious Szechuan food.. I think ttw is still suffering from the mala-ness now..
Friday, August 24, 2007
This is quite cool.
That means Cecilia in PhD comics is exactly the same age as I am.
Hur hur. I wonder if it means that I am as smart and capable a grad student. :D
That means Cecilia in PhD comics is exactly the same age as I am.
Hur hur. I wonder if it means that I am as smart and capable a grad student. :D
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