Pursuing praxis

I’d like to see a whole series of pics like this - squirrel, armadillo, octopus, bushbaby, the works. 

I heard a story recently which underscored the need for awareness of cultural context. It really is secondhand - I heard it from the guy myself. It goes like this:

He ships out for a west African university to help them set up a computer network at their school. His excess baggage on the plane consists of some 30 computers. He arrives at his destination, and within two weeks he has the whole thing set up. Huzzah.

Of course, a network with no one who actually knows how to administer and maintain it is useless, so he decides that an internship program would be perfect for training students to use the computers, administer the network, boost usage, and ensure long-term viability. So at a faculty meeting he pitches his idea to the chair, and concludes by saying "So I think an internship program would be perfect. 12 interns should be just right. Six men and six women."

The chair nods slowly, and drawls out a "Yes," which, as the fellow said, is African for "no." Everyone else in the room is silent, and remains silent. Seconds tick by. Eventually someone lets out a giggle. Soon everyone is laughing uproariously, the chair included. The fellow has no idea what’s going on. He thought it was a good idea.

At least in that west African country, students who want to learn a new skill are first "attached" to an instructor. If they’re interested enough and good enough, they will then become "apprenticed" to the instructor, to eventually become independent with their skillset.

The only "intern" they had ever heard of was Monica Lewinsky. And he wanted twelve!

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I also happened to watch the movie Secondhand Lions last night, which centers a lot on secondhand stories and trust, although it does also have a secondhand (used) lion in it. Not a bad movie, except for some overly mushy parts towards the end. It’s kind of an oddball movie, maybe a little discombobulated as far as style goes, but if you find it on TV and have nothing else to do, I recommend it.

Philosophical insights via god, dogs and frogs, in one of my favorite comic strips.

A is A (metaphysics)
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2008/05/10/

Ditto the above.
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2008/05/15/

The nature of man (gateway to epistemology and ethics):
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2008/05/04/
(does this count as an evo-devo hypothesis?)

On faulty assumptions and value pursuit (epistemology and ethics)
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2008/06/01/

The main competitor for Starbucks here in Chicago, it seems. Apart from having a cervid motif, I dig their slogan: "Life is short. Stay awake for it."

Perusing books late at night, I came across the quote page behind the table of contents in Bob Carroll’s Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. The quote is too good to pass up. I’ve never completely "gotten" poetry, but the kinds I like tend to rhyme and have a nifty beat and cool message. This one’s a little light on message, but hey, it has to do with fossils. Here ya go:

Last night in the museum’s hall
The fossils gathered for a ball.
There were no drums or saxophones,
But just the clatter of their bones,
A rolling, rattling carefree circus
Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas.
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistoric choruses.
Amid the mastodonic wassail
I caught the eye of one small fossil.
Cheer up, sad world, he said, and winked -
It’s kind of fun to be extinct.

–Ogden Nash, "Carnival of the Animals"

I’ve taken to reading blogs by ER staff and ambulence drivers. I don’t recall how I stumbled into that realm of the blogosphere, but it’s some great reading.

Ambulence Driver shares some memorable vignettes from the ER.  

An important message from M.O.D.: HTFU 

I’ll put political links in a separate one. They’re not funny. 

Scientists for Better PCR music video. Please support the cause.  

True story:

Pragmatist: "Are you saying you don’t think a cup has the capacity to hold water?"

Behaviorist: "No, I’m saying there’s no such thing as a capacity. A cup either has water in it or it doesn’t."

Pragmatist: "But what about a cup you haven’t seen before. Like that one there. Would you say that cup has a capacity to hold water?"

Behaviorist: "No. I don’t know." (shrugs)

Pragmatist: "But surely you’ve had to buy cups before! What did you do then?"

Behaviorist: "People have told me that cups hold water, and I trust them, so that’s how I behave towards the cup."

[Brief silence.] 

Pragmatist: "What if I filled this cup with water, right to the brim. Wouldn’t you say it has the capacity to hold water, even though it can’t hold any more?"

Behaviorist: ". . . What is this, a riddle?"

Novelist (to me): "I think this conversation, unlike that cup, won’t hold any water."

From Dad, courtesy of a family friend:

New Direction for the war on terrorists.

Share this with your senior friends. It’s purposely in big type so you can read it

Ah, scientists. They’re eminently quotable, and their limbic effluxes give me fodder for a sometimes-ebbing blog.

To a first-year grad student on switching from engineering to a biomechanics PhD program: "Your work matters less, but you’ll be happier."

"Contextualize this."  

"Ha! I win! I’ve caught you in a web of lies!"

"Turns out hyenas aren’t the only species where you have to be careful of the adult females."
"You mean Homo sapiens?"
"Let’s just say she hasn’t been very happy since one of the hyenas bit her thumb off."

"Did I miss as much as I wanted to?"
"More."
"Awesome."

If I ran a dinky little restaurant, I’d put this in the customer’s bathroom. Out of stock since the 13th century, but maybe they’ll get some more in soon.

From the best of craigslist:

Date: 2007-05-03, 2:34PM EDT

I have 2 dogs & I was buying a large bag of Pal at Big W and standing inline at the check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Pal Diet again although I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV’s in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Pal nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I’d been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Stupid b*tch…why else would I buy dog food?? 

Never would have thunk it, huh? Me either. But evidently my knee-length dark blue skirt, bungee-laced hiking shoes, and a zip-up sweatshirt I wore to a dinner party suggested to an Israeli colleague of mine that I was an Orthodox Jew. I never would have thought my modified REI-chic could be so misrepresentative of myself. Haha. We laughed it off, but I felt considerably more dowdy the rest of the evening.

Other cool YouTube links du jour:

Impossible Is Nothing.

House-jumping with an RC car

The London Underground is not a political movement. Hell yeah :o)

—-

Added 8/23

How the Scottish invented Golf, by Robin Williams 

Here’s some stuff I’ve come across lately. I’m low on post-inspiration today.

Unbelievable: Pride and Prejudice not good enough to be published today. I suspect more publishers sniffed a problem and, like the last agency quoted, chose not to stir up emotions and simply be done with the "author" - though it’s still damning, because cracking open the first page of that book would have revealed much more than close ’similarities’, so that’s negative points on intellectual integrity for them.

Way believable, and way cool. A beautiful … music video?? … of the 17-year cicadas and their life cycle, set to music by Enya. Funny how the right music can make one favorably regard a classic pest. The time-lapse photography showing them crawling out of their nymph shells and unfurling their wings is really neat. 

And, along with my purchase of HP7 at Fry’s Electronics this weekend, I strolled past the first book (Vol. 1, Issue 114, No. 247, I think) in the Haggis-on-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance Series. Yes, it’s as good as it sounds. I was torn between my two academic loves: things with split hooves and four stomachs, and human anatomy. Ultimately I chose Giraffes? Giraffes! over Your Disgusting Head: The Darkest, Most Offensive and Moist Secrets of Your Ears, Mouth and Nose. You know, lunch reading material at work.

Oh, and if you think the cosmology of Scientology is some of the best fodder for stand-up comedy (Dave), you should check out the book on giraffes. I suspect Tom Cruise would have some choice words for the giraffe population of Terre Haute, Indiana, but I think their belief system stands up just as well as that devised by L. Ron Hubbard. Really, he should check them out. I think it’s healthier to fixate on giraffes and Neptune than be a scientologist, anyway. Plus, L. Ron Hubbard never got a doctorate. So Dr. (and Mr.) Doris Haggis-On-Whey must have it right.

I’m sorely tempted to go get that second one and lobby for using one of their figures as part of an extra credit question for the anatomy lab final. Only eight bucks at Fry’s (hardcover, new, and only a buck more expensive than the cheapest ones on Amazon). Think I can hold out? Yeah, me either.

Well, inspiration problem solved. And I think I should have titled this post ‘Believability".