CHE 01/10

i have the chronicle of higher education puzzle today. for reasons that are somewhat hard to explain, i can't get put this puzzle on the java applet, so please head along here to grab it in across lite or pdf format. also, if you don't do crosswords regularly, you may find this one a bit of a struggle. fair warning.

puzzle notes, stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled:

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this one went through 3 different incarnations before finally being accepted at the CHE. my original idea was to insert SIN, COS and TAN into phrases to produce wackiness: my theme set was

AC(COS)T THE GOAT
(TAN)GO FOR THE GOLD
DUTCH COU(SIN) RAGE

which every editor i sent it to uninamously agreed was just way too far to go. patrick suggested this version of the theme, and this is how it turned out. i'm not entirely sure i'm that happy with the final result; i will say though that clue-wise, the final product makes me look like i'm very erudite, which is always a good thing, and 20-Across is something i've always wanted to see in a grid.

an observation

this country needs more dive bars.

zhong qiu

there are now five of us in the lab most days: RA #1 and dr. fnir and i, and brice and a more senior person who is very nice but does't seem to figure in our research in any way. i've actually yet to sort out exactly what his role in the team is, but 2 months in it seems a rather odd question to ask. the boss is still absent most days, which gives us lots of time to toss ideas around and figure out how we can have a research program instead of a bunch of random studies, and bitch about engineers.

today, however, was tea and mooncakes upstairs with strange people from other floors who do things with turbines, which was actually a nice pause, because real work is going to start pretty soon. i'm hoping to get study approval by next week, following which it will be time to step hard on the throttle and get pilot data collected post haste. also, the optical equipment has come in, which means that one room in our lab actually looks like it can be used for science, and i want to get my finger in that pie and see if i can't learn the basics of how to run something using infra-red. i love the interval right before data collection. it's so full of promise and devoid of problems, and it totally doesn't matter that once the data start coming in they'll look horrible and i'll spend sleepless nights wishing i'd never seen them.

meanwhile, we've been spending a bunch of time trying to disabuse RA #1 of the notion that grad school is "fun", a service which was happily provided to me by seniors all over the place when i was considering applying. i strongly believe this is something that has to be paid forward -- no one should start a phd with the idea that anything other than tears and alcoholism are involved. going in with that notion is half the battle won.

trying for i think the third time to understand what string theory is and why it's such a big deal, this time by reading brian greene's the elegant universe. my essential problem, i've come to realize, is this. sure, i can accept that fundamental particles are made out of 1-dimensional vibrating strings that confer on them their respective properties of energy and mass. but what does it mean that these strings aren't made of anything else? that they're not strings of anything, but just...strings? how do you even begin to imagine or make sense of that? i mean, i'm beginning to feel like the old lady who pronounced that it was turtles all the way down, but at least we all know what turtles are.

of course, the physicists among us are all like:

interesting discussion came up today on the discussion boards about whether the word "kaffir", clued as [Type of lime] or some such is suitable for publication in a mainstream crossword. the guy asking the question had only heard the word in that context, though as some (many?) of you may be aware, it's a pretty nasty racial slur in africa. from the link:

The original meaning of the word is 'heathen', 'unbeliever' or 'infidel', from the Arabic 'kafir' and is still being used with this meaning by Muslims. The Arabic term Kafir (arab كافر) is, however, also applied to simply anyone who is not a Muslim. Portuguese explorers used the term generally to describe tribes they encountered in southern Africa, probably having misunderstood its etymology from Muslim traders along the coast. European colonists subsequently continued its use. Although it was in wide use between the 16th and 19th centuries, and not generally seen as an offensive term, as racial tensions increased in 20th century South Africa and the surrounding countries, it became a term of abuse.

well yes, came one reply, but it is a bona fide word when clued as the fruit, and if we disqualify it on the basis of its racist meaning, what happens to charlie, or slope, or oreo? doesn't the substance of the clue matter, or are some words with more than one meaning/usage just off the table entirely because one of their definitions is unacceptable? and what about the context in which the puzzle is being solved*? if we were sure that no one who may take offense would ever see it, would that make it ok?

interestingly, the community didn't reach a consensus, although the original asker ended up deciding it was safer to rework the section. was kind of an interesting point of contention though. thought i'd share.

* incid., email me to tell me if you were aware that the word is a slur; full disclosure: i only ever knew it as a lime.

i should perhaps clarify that i have nothing against engineers personally. many of them are perfectly nice people who have just chosen to study a rather unfortunate subject.

j/k.

didn't really understand what the big deal was when su-lin reported that the MRT sang at her last week, but they've started playing the horrid train-is-coming jingle along the north-south line now, and i fully agree that it's an abomination that makes me want to kill someone.

i hate stereotypes as much as the next person, but there seriously need to be more engineers who realize that machines should be designed so that real people can use them and find them useful. in contrast, i think many of the folks down the hallway want nothing more than to go the whole asimov and just have machines that use machines, and make other machines and then kill all humans and take over the world.

some days you want to listen to bach. for other days, there's this:

so after one very long and quiet month i finally have two (2) new labmates, one other post-doc and an RA, both of whom seem very nice. i'm debating the wisdom of using names, although i suppose any reasonably diligent (and nosy) individual could be now easily work out who i am and where i currently work*. perhaps for now they should be the other post-doc, and the physics RA. no, something more exciting. well, the post-doc does FNIR (functional near infra-red imaging), so he can be dr. fnir. and actually, RAs are pretty unexciting so he can be RA #1. dr. fnir just finished a phd in the states and has very similar notions to me of what a lab should be like, which is excellent because i don't think the boss quite shares that vision. it's not always about numbers, but 2 vs 1 is a comforting start. RA #1 is me 6 years ago except that he knows a lot more about neutrinos.

in other news, i had lunch today with yl's friend, who i met at the japanese film festival last week, and who is interested in music psychology, homosexuality in religion, and a bunch of other weird and wonderful things. we landed up in the horrible arts and sciences cafe where the mashed potatoes look and taste like glue, and spent a pleasant hour chatting about argentina, and using BCI to turn EEG waveforms into music, and whether graduate education is worth the peril of pursuing it (totally). not that you don't know this already, but conversations like these are what make working in academia the best thing ever.

* i tend to only use names of people who read this blog, and even then.