Testing Countdown

I’ve decided that it’s a take-it-easy kind of week. I haven’t made it into the office before 10, and I haven’t stayed past 4 yet. And I don’t plan to change that pattern over the next two days.

Unfortunately this can only mean one thing: it’s time to start testing. This time I’m looking at the acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues – The DOC task – which we hope will some day turn into a new test of executive control. Basically, you present a discrimination (x vs y), and then in two contexts (A and B) the correct answer is x, and in C and D the correct answer is y. None of the four contexts share any similarity besides the way that they predict the rewarded discrimination. You then test to see if the rat treats A and B, and C and D, as similar, which implies high executive control.

It’s never been done before in the way that we’re going to do it – so I have no idea how long it’s going to take me to get through it all. Which is fun…

Then, once I’m done with that, I’m retesting the sample that I tested a couple of months ago – you remember, the couple of weeks of hellishly long days: yeah, that ’s happening again. Then we’ve got another experiment in the wings to keep me busy after that. So, if I’m (un)lucky, I’m going to be in the lab full(+) time for the next few months.

This may be the best thing ever

Just before I die, hearing the President say “you ain’t my bitch, nigga, buy your own damn fries” will surely be a moment that gets considerable air-time as my life flashes before my eyes. In my mind, he’s saying most of these things to members of G.W. Bush’s former cabinet.

See the rest here.

Source (but the server over there is dying horribly).

Update: Now with YouTubey goodness.

Update 2: The Boston Phoenix knows what’s up.

Snow is a bastard

Woke up this morning to reports of Britain grinding to a halt because of snow. I’ve always said that London is absolutely pathetic in it’s response to even the smallest of snowfalls, but I guess when it only happens once every 2-3 years, there’s no point in using tax funds to devise and implement a ‘just-in-case’ response strategy.

That being said, I love snow. In fact, it’s probably because of the rarity of snow – and the inevitability of snow days given that whole grind-to-a-halt thing – that makes it so appealing. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I woke up to see green grass, grey skies and rain this morning. And wind. Oh, the wind we’ve seen these past few days…

Someone upstairs (and I don’t mean the lab) obviously hates me, because just as I had accepted that I wasn’t going to get to see a white-coloured town, I got to the front door it was not only snowing, it was snowing sideways. That lovely south-southeast gale that I woke up to was now battering ice flakes right horizontally outside, just in time for me to go to work. Fantastic, thought I, as I put my hood up and stepped out into this burgeoning blizzard. The best was yet to come, though: the gale decided it would be quite a giggle to shift to due west – in other words directly on my back. Even this wouldn’t be so bad as due east, but given the strength of the gusts, I was not in a ‘could-be-worse’ kind of mood. At one point as I had to literally lean back a few degrees so as not to be blown over, I actually turned around to see if someone was pushing me for a laugh.

I did see one of the more amazing sights of my life, though. The short cliff face that runs from beach to Cathedral was channelling the wind in such a way that the snow was – without exaggeration – falling up before flying laterally down Kirkhill. I knew this wouldn’t make for cheery walking given that I was still leaning back to keep from getting knocked down, so I ran – yes, ran: I wasn’t strong enough to walk into the wind at this point – into the Cathedral grounds and the wind-breaking their walls provided.

Once I was out of the sea wind, walking was a whole lot easier. My trouser cuffs were soaked, I was cold, and I was definitely redefining ‘wind-swept’. But, I was no longer cursing the weather; I was resuming hope for it to stick around and blanket the town after all. Got my morning coffee, left the shop, and wouldn’t you know it?

The bastard snow stopped falling. Blue skies; just in time for me to go inside.

Culinary Goal Met

That’s what I had for dinner tonight. Steak and Dark Island Ale pie with crust from scratch and all. Sure, my braids around the edge need a little work. And it took so long that I didn’t end up even tasting it until 21:30. But, given that no one was here to share it with me, I dare say it was good enough to win me a Michelin Star.

Kind of sums it all up…

Don’t it?

More than 1,300 Gazans died in the three-week military action, which Israel launched after Gaza’s Hamas government failed to stop militants firing rockets into southern Israel. The rocket attacks have killed 20 people in the past eight years. More than half of the Palestinian dead were said to be civilians and up to 5,000 people were injured. On the Israeli side 13 people died, including four soldiers hit by friendly fire and three civilians killed by rocket fire, and 50 were hurt.

Source: Times Online

This whole situation has nothing to do with religion, the legitimacy of the Hamas government, or Israel’s right to exist. It has to do with those four little treaties signed in Geneva that people have been all too willing to ignore over the past 8 years. It has to do with remembering that there is nothing in this world that can grant the authority to commit war crimes.

And yet, all we seem to be able to talk about is whether this appeal was too biased to be shown on the BBC.

Barack Obama owes much to science fiction

Despite the fact that he’s apparently BFF with Spiderman, Barack Obama actually owes it all to Star Trek: Voyager, and more specifically Seven-Of-Nine actress Jeri Ryan. Ryan appears fourth in this list of hot women who took down powerful men (which, I might add, is an awesome premise for a list):

Jeri Ryan
Before getting the Republican nomination for Illinois senate in 2004, businessman Jack Ryan had been married to TV actress Jeri Ryan. While their union ended in a 1999 divorce, it became a campaign issue when unsealed documents from their child custody hearings revealed that Jeri had alleged Jack insisted she have public intercourse with him at a sex club. Ryan dropped out of the race, clearing the way for Barack Obama to waltz to his first major political victory. (FTA)

Now, this probably would have surfaced during the campaign even if it weren’t for the fairer Ryan’s high-profile occupation, but it’s way more fun to credit the franchise that televised the first interracial kiss with being instrumental to the election of the first black president.

And so the question naturally follows: is there anything Star Trek can’t do?

And, no, “get you laid” is not an acceptable answer.

Cleaning Up The Bureau

Cleaning Up The Bureau

Originally uploaded by aechase

I discovered the makings of a rather interesting scene as I tidied up the top of my cluttered bureau.

And now this photo has formed a challenge over at Adventures With Photos.

The next Batman villian?

Some of you might say that I’m only posting this because it supports my previous hypothesis.

Well, nuts to you.

“Could this be the face of the next penguin?” via io9.com

Notes from a train

I enjoyed not one but two humourous advertisements on the backs of buses from my taxi to the train station. The first seemed perfectly reasonable: it was meant to inform of London’s new law that basically counts gum as litter, with careless disposal leading to fines of up to £80. Like I said, sounds reasonable, but did we really need a “Chewing Gum Action Group” to do this?

The second was part of the new NHS campaign “Be Cervix Savvy”, designed to help women learn more about the benefits of regular cervical screening, and the dangers of cervical cancer. A worthy endeavour I’m sure you’ll agree – but the NHS chose a very curious medium. Specifically, this guy. And if that’s not bad enough, there are videos too. While I find these hilariously ridiculous, I could see some people finding them downright sexist – can women not be trusted to take advice from women, and so need to be told important things by eye-candy?

As I tweeted earlier, my train is definitely some sort of time capsule. Not only is it one of the old-school ‘ash-trays-in-the-arm-rest-faux-polished-wood-trim-lights-on-the-tables’ trains, but the average age of my immediate vicinity has got to be 73. And I don’t mean like the 3 people adjacent to me – oh no – the n of this sample is definitely at least 12. Even the ticket collector was getting on in years. That’s OK, though. I’ll take old over mouth-breathers any day of the week.

I’m listening to Nouvelle Vague, and you should be too. Later I’m going to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I’ve never seen in its entirety, despite having numerous friends who claim it as their favourite film.

As you may have surmised from the fact that I’m writing Notes, I’m on a train back to St Andrews. When I left, I was planning on returning to frantic data collection to try and finish a chapter of my experiment before the end of December, but plans have changed, and that urgency is now gone. This should make for a slightly more casual end of the month, and I may even get a chance to go back to London for a long weekend at the start of January.

I had a great Christmas vacation – very relaxing, much gluttony, many an hour spent lounging in front of a fire, TV or laptop. I’m ready to get back to work, though, to be honest.

Yankees sign Teixeira?

Reports are flooding in. The Yankees, it seems, have signed Mark Teixeira to an 8-year, $170m deal.

That’s right, $21.25m for the next 8 years. Add that to the wallet-busting deals given to CC Sabathia ($161m/7 years plus $9.5m signing bonus) and AJ Burnett ($82.5m/5 years), and the Yankees have committed a belt-tightening $423 million dollars this offseason, and it’s not even Christmas.

If you’re asking yourself, just how much money do these guys have? Wait – it gets better.

The Yankees are also looking at $26.9m in luxury tax for last year, and can only expect that number to go up for this season. ESPN puts the current Yankee’s roster at $207m. Throw in these three new acquisitions, and you’re looking at an adjective-defying $325m, which would land the Yanks a 2009 luxury tax bill of $61m (1). $386m in one year.

Yeah, now you should be asking yourself – how much money do these guys actually have?

Personally, I’m not too upset by the Sox missing out on Teixeira. I’m a big Mike Lowell fan, and I was certain that signing Teix would mean the end of Mikey’s service in Boston. This also means that I can stop rehearsing my “the Red Sox are SO the new Evil Empire” rebuttals. Because – really – the Empire is back to it’s old ways. Gotta problem? Throw some money at it. Home-grown talent? Naw, I’d rather have a big free-agent signing, thank you (”[whole-pear...whole-pear] Sorry, Joba, your training is not complete. [whole-pear...whole-pear]“).

(1). I got this number by adding the estimated salaries of the 3 new free-agents to ESPN’s reported 2008 salaries of Yankees still on the active roster. Luxury tax was estimated at 40%. $61.1m should be taken as an upper-bound estimation of the 2009 Yankees as they stand at time of posting, not an accurate guess of what they’ll actually owe.