Finally someone is on the right path...

Its a start. And a good one. Google gives phone numbers to the homeless in SF.

It almost makes me want to read the book...

Almost. "If women ruled the world"

Very Cool Visualization

History of Movie Revenue.

My brain does funny things.

I'm not sure exactly what my fluids professor said, but this is how it happened in my head.
"Sorry if this is too mathy... too dry. Soon we'll apply this to pipes and real situations. Soon it will get wetter." I think he may have actually said better, but I did not appreciate the pun at 9am on a Friday.

My brain also made this fun little thing happen:
you = you + delta(you).
Oye.

Celebrity with hair most like mine: Johnny Depp.

Hopefully more thoughts will follow on Facebook, privacy, and deletion.
This struck me as interesting, however "Still, such experiences have done little to quiet the jitters of many users, who see Facebook’s adjusted policy as an inadequate response to their demand for an easy opt-out button and to their larger concerns over the network’s efforts to profit from the private information they volunteer to the site."
Mini rant: Ok, I don't think Facebook has dealt with a lot of things well. They only consider privacy when people complain about it, rather than designing for it. I'm not a fan of how they've done a lot of things - its a lot harder to fix and make sure it was done right after it's been released to the wild. However, there's something to be said for not posting things on Facebook you don't want other people to see. YOU PROVIDE THE INFORMATION. You VOLUNTEER it. I dunno, maybe I subscribe too highly to the philosophy of "don't do things in your life you'll be ashamed of later." Or maybe its just how the media chooses to spin some of these things, but honestly - you have to own up for your own actions, to some extent.This situation happens ALL THE TIME. And while I don't think Facebook should give so much "private" information to the application developers, the user agrees to it, in many cases. However, there's a lot of stuff Facebook hides/doesn't tell users that they are "consenting" to - and thats not really consent, is it?

More links, Compliments of Marty

I'm tired of spin. I'm tired of election years. Is it really this ridiculous every four years ( I understand that this is a crazy year but still... this is out of control. Must I dread election years)? I thought this fairly objective analysis of Obama and Clinton's senate record was interesting.

Some Thoughts

The ridiculousness of IRB was brought up today, and this article was referenced. Wow. Basically, a checklist was implemented to remind doctors to wash their hands before surgery, reducing the amount of BSIs (blood stream infections) by 2/3rds in THREE MONTHS. This is a BIG DEAL. The program was shut down since there wasn't IRB approval because each patient didn't sign a form giving consent for the doctors to try the check list. Over 18 months the program saved 1500 lives and was shut down because they didn't have IRB approval. I can't deal with how... absurd this is. Hand hygiene is a MAJOR issue in healthcare (I could go into all the reasons that its pretty much impossible for providers to be 100% compliant with hand hygiene) but this is an issue that all hospitals face, and it is SCARY.

So then I realized the author of the article's name was familiar. Atul Gawande. We'd read some of his work in my Human Factors issues in Healthcare class. I really like some of his opinions written for the New Yorker.

And this has some pretty crazy facts about unwanted pregnancies and birthcontrol.

And, because I need a lighter note to end this on: I think about hitchhiking to class every MWF at about.. 8:45 am. And I think about blogging about it, every day. And until now, I haven't (hitchhiked, or blogged it). So there it is.

Girls + Math + Science

I had to post... couldn't wait... even though I should be working on my TAM lab... but this is important.
Today's XKCD:


Interesting article from the fora
Interesting article about girls, science, and professor parents.

Post from the fora that makes me giggle:
"Attn: Girls

You are probably better at math than you have been lead to believe. Consider becoming an engineer.

My college has a great engineering program.

Come to my school.

Please."

It is interesting reading the xkcd fora... I don't read it on a regular basis... but you get some "intelligent" discussion because of the readership in addition to the "omgwtfbbq girls DO suck at math" discussion... it's not all flaming. The internet CAN be good for some discussion.

In mentoring freshmen (girls in General Engineering, boys in computer science), this is absolutely true at the college level and has to deal with the retention of women in engineering disciplines. Many girls quit out of engineering after the first couple of exams they get a "C" on, saying "I can't do this" whereas their male counterparts say "The professor sucked". The gender stereotyping about math and science starts very very early - as early as how elementary school teachers talk to their students. There ISNT critical mass of women in engineering/math/science to avoid these generalizations. The important part is to focus on skills INDIVIDUALS are good at (or not so good at) and work to improve their weaknesses. Its entirely too easy for an individual female to say "I screwed up, but its ok because girls are bad at math, I give up and will do something else now."

Its funny, coming to the University and Engineering - I didn't feel that I, as a woman, needed special mentoring because I was a woman (but I'm also a professor's daughter). I didn't like "most" female engineers - or at least not big crowds of them. Maybe that's because I've very often been the one girl with a group of 3-5 guys since I was 3 years old (literally). I don't regret not being involved in SWE or WIE - though I probably did miss out on what could be important friendships or some networking experiences - but I DO think mentoring is such an important experience for both genders.

Today was a good day

Why I love Prof Hollis:

Dear Everyone:

I am sorry – for all the people who caught my typo and completely freaked out. I should have said the first draft of PAPER #1 in its entirely. NOT paper #2!!! My apologies for the negligent infliction of emotional distress.

/Prof. H.

Everyone should listen to Giant Bear, if I didn't post it already.

Randoms

Toys

Also, the concept of serving someone with a court summons by hitting them with a potato cracks me up... but I can't find reference to it anywhere. Le sigh.

Wow...

Watch watch watch

Also... Straw bale houses

LOBSTERS lay 10,000 - 80,000 eggs and may hatch about 10,000 larvae. OMG.

It's comforting to know I'm not the only one who ennumerates their tribulations

Political coverage, by the girl who does indexed:

Woot! 150 posts.. and still nothing interesting to read.

Um... so I laughed, a lot, at this.
"The platypus is mother nature's way of saying, "I made this thing out of spare parts I found on the workshop floor, and it can still f***ing cripple you.""

Also, I have no idea if I posted "yeah toast" before, but I need to, in case I didn't, because everyone needs to know about it. And it explains at least one of my random outbursts.

Can I graduate please? I am so done with homework.

Lessons

Things I would advise against:
Trusting Microsoft Office Products to print in a WYSIWYG manner.
Spilling Lemon Cream Sauce from Za's inside your messenger bag.

Shiny: I walked 1.5 miles back in the cold, cold rain.

"Everyone wants to talk about criminal law. Give it 10 years, you'll all be wanting to talk to me about divorce law." Prof. Hollis.