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May 30, 2007

Facebook: Not Just for Kids Anymore?

I have a college-aged sister, and a couple years ago, she told me about Facebook, a social networking site for college students. Since I was in graduate school, I signed up, but since I was a very old graduate student, it became rapidly clear that I was one of the oldest people on Facebook. However, it seemed that basically every college student was using it to see who was in their classes and form groups based on dorm, major, etc.

A couple of years later, however, it seems that more and more people are using it, and recently, just over the past week or two, I've seen a lot of people -- some I haven't seen in years -- suddenly joining Facebook. Weblogs I read are even creating Facebook groups. What's going on that more people over 30 are using it all of a sudden?

Anyway, for those interested, I present:

My Facebook profile

My MySpace profile

Dean on Friendster

Orkut (remember that?)

Posted by Dean at 9:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 29, 2007

More Language Followup

A regular reader writes in about my earlier entry about infer and imply:

On www.m-w.com (the site from which I proudly receive my Word of the Day, as a National Spelling bee alumnus), infer is, in one of its definitions, apparently synonymous with imply. I, just now, had to stifle a seriously nerdy desire to use "imply" functionally in that last sentence, creating a play on words. I thought I should make that known.
Main Entry:

Pronunciation:
\in-ˈfər\
Function:
verb
transitive verb
1: to derive as a conclusion from facts or premises <we see smoke and infer fire — L. A. White> — compare imply
2: guess, surmise <your letter…allows me to infer that you are as well as ever — O. W. Holmes died 1935>
3 a: to involve as a normal outcome of thought b: to point out : indicate <this doth infer the zeal I had to see him — Shakespeare> <another survey…infers that two-thirds of all present computer installations are not paying for themselves — H. R. Chellman>
4: suggest, hint <are you inferring I'm incompetent?>

Imply and suggest are listed as synonyms of one another in the thesaurus. Does this mean that infer CAN, actually, be synonymous with imply? I really don't think the example question is asking "are you assuming/gathering/surmising I'm incompetent?" I might be missing something, and I'm not saying that at all sarcastically or smugly. I really do feel like a presumptuous little shit to challenge it at all. Is it also possible that the good people at Merriam Webster feel the need to give definition 4 of infer because so much of the population misuses it?

Definition 4 certain says that a possible definition of "infer" can be "imply." But this is wrong! My correspondent is correct in inferring that Merriam Webster placed that definition there because it is so often misused. That's what you have to watch out for with dictionaries-- they are not necessarily prescriptive texts authoritatively explaining how language should be used. To a large degree, dictionaries are descriptive, documenting the various ways in which words are used. Merriam Webster, however, is awesome in that it not only provides definitions in their online dictionary, but it has extensive notes on the infer vs. imply issue:

Sir Thomas More is the first writer known to have used both infer and imply in their approved senses (1528). He is also the first to have used infer in a sense close in meaning to imply (1533). Both of these uses of infer coexisted without comment until some time around the end of World War I. Since then, senses 3 and 4 of infer have been frequently condemned as an undesirable blurring of a useful distinction. The actual blurring has been done by the commentators. Sense 3, descended from More's use of 1533, does not occur with a personal subject. When objections arose, they were to a use with a personal subject (now sense 4). Since dictionaries did not recognize this use specifically, the objectors assumed that sense 3 was the one they found illogical, even though it had been in respectable use for four centuries. The actual usage condemned was a spoken one never used in logical discourse. At present sense 4 is found in print chiefly in letters to the editor and other informal prose, not in serious intellectual writing. The controversy over sense 4 has apparently reduced the frequency of use of sense 3.
It sounds like there that definition #3 is consistent with infer being a close synonym of surmise-- impersonal subjects (such as data) deduce or conclude things, however, over time, people took this to mean that personal subjects could indicate/imply something. One might almost be ready to forgive someone who made this mistake if they saw definition #3 of infer being used on a regular basis, but in fact, most people just seem to use "infer" as a synonym to "imply" if they're making a lame attempt at sounding intellectual (such as in the above-mention example of a letter to the editor). This was, I should note, the one of the first "SAT words" that we had beaten into our skulls to remember.

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May 28, 2007

Speaking of the Godfather...

There are some people who Washington who do take the Godfather a little too seriously...

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May 27, 2007

Long Distance Running as an Approach to Life

This post about an amateur jogger who decides to show off and try to outrun a woman who turns out to be a hardcore marathon-runner reminded me of why I like running so much.

I'm usually good enough to do a 5-mile run a day through Rock Creek Park. I don't run competitively, but I can run a 7ish-minute mile pace on a 3-5 mile run if I push myself. It gives me a chance to go outside and not have to think so darn hard for a small part of the day. My approach to long distance running is a lot like my approach to academics:

Posted by Dean at 9:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Michael Corleone vs. The Dude

Like most straight men, I've seen a lot of romantic comedies at the movies. I assume it is the same for most straight men. Not because romantic comedies are designed to appeal to the straight white male demographic, but rather because many of us tend to have girlfriends at one time or another who want to see those romantic comedies, and we end up accompanying them. I guess I'm saying all this to explain how it was that I ended up seeing the movie You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (aside: the real reason to see this movie is for Parker Posey). There's one thing this movie gets right... Meg Ryan realizes that all men understand references to the movie The Godfather and asks "what is it about men and The Godfather?" Men love this movie.

You know, everyone wants to be Michael Corleone. He dresses well. When out getting a drink with someone, he orders a club soda, so he always keeps his edge. He takes risky moves, like the scene at the restaurant when he went to the bathroom to get the gun. He loves his mother, which is why he doesn't have his brother Fredo killed until after she dies.

You know, though, let's face it-- I might like Michael Corleone, but I'm not going to be Michael Corleone. It just wouldn't be believable. I shave at most 3 times a week. Rarely am I accused of being a snappy dresser. No matter how much I exercise, I will never have a perfectly flat stomach. Then there's the drinking thing. Just last night, I was out having drinks with friends, and I asked the waiter for a drink suggestion. He said they had a special mango margarita, which I decided that I had to try. I am so not Michael Corleone. At the end of the day, I have to accept that I'm more like The Dude:


(That's him on the left for those of you are aren't Big Lebowski fans)

The Dude abides. He wears comfortable clothes. He has good enough taste that he can buy a rug that "ties the room together" and doesn't worry about the perception of a White Russian as a "chick drink." He likes White Russians, so he drinks White Russians. He has his close friends who stick by him when he's in a jam.

I'm not too concerned about the need to "go to the mattresses." I'm not going to take down my enemies in a restaurant in a gutsy move before escaping to my family's home village while I wait for everything to blow over and meanwhile marry a local woman who ends up dying in a car bomb. I'd just rather go bowling. And have a few White Russians.

I suppose this revelation should be a relief to my brother, who no longer has to worry that I might decide to have him killed.

Posted by Dean at 12:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 25, 2007

Occupational Hazards of Science

From Powers Vol. 3:




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May 22, 2007

Ah, High School

While on the subject of high school reunions, I was reminded of one of my very favorite takes on high school from suck.com, entitled Popular Mechanics:

Ask anyone ["How popular were you in high school?"] and they'll say the same thing.

But the only real way to judge someone's popularity is by demanding details to support this "dork" claim.



Anyway, I encourage you all to read the whole thing. It's hilarious.

Posted by Dean at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2007

Now I've Done It

I've done something fairly dangerous this evening. I finally got everything configured and set up to allow me to work from home over a Virtual Private Network to NIST. Whereas previously, I had to stop working at 5:30 because that was when the last shuttle bus for the Shady Grove metro station left, now I can work anytime I want! Woohoo!

Posted by Dean at 11:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2007

15 Years Later...

This weekend was my 15 year reunion from high school. This was me back in 1992:


I had never looked that good before, and I have never looked that good since. This is how the years have treated us:
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That's Mr. NoGoodDaddy right there on my left (check out how he looked in high school). Actually, I do have to say that I look pretty good given that I'm 32 years old. My hairstyle is uncannily unchanged. Well, not unchanged as much as reverted to my early-90s style after some time spent as a long-haired pony-tailed grad student.

More reunion pics in my photo archive.

Posted by Dean at 11:43 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 19, 2007

Two years after he's gone, I now know all about Terry McAuliffe

So, on my post about jury duty, I mentioned in passing that it gave me a chance to catch up on reading. The book I finally got around to finishing was the autobiography of Terry McAuliffe, former head of Democratic National Committee, What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals. Now, there aren't many people who know much about Terry McAuliffe. In many circles, he wasn't a popular guy. He was loathed by many activist Democrats because he presided over an era from 2001-2005 in which the Democrats were out-witted and outplayed by the GOP while the Democrats seemed to sit there and take it. He was also loathed by a lot of Rush Limbaugh listeners because Rush told them to loathe him and was referred to a "Terry McAwful," so, clearly, he had to be the enemy. For the most part though, he wasn't a high profile character outside of fundraising circles and pundit shows.

I have to say that this book was a triumph of marketing prowess. When the book came out, there was a lot of press about how it had the inside scoop of McAuliffe's criticism of John Kerry's presidential campaign. Mostly, of course, the book is an autobiography of McAuliffee himself where he talks about his life and work in political fundraising from the late 1970s up through his close work with Bill Clinton to his appointment as chairman of the DNC in 2001 until he stepped down in 2005 when Howard Dean took over. However, the part about foibles of the John Kerry campaign appear in the first chapter. A good guess would be that when the book was released, various reporters were going to pick up the book, read the first chapter, skim the rest of it, if they read it at all, and then write their stories. Suddenly, the press about the book had a big story to trumpet-- "McAuliffe criticized Kerry's campaign!" because that was really the only part of the book they read. Hey, it convinced me to buy the book. As I said, brilliant marketing strategy.

Anyway, I learned three things from McAuliffe's book: #1: Every good thing the Democrats did was McAuliffe's idea. #2: Every mistake the Democrats made occurred because they didn't listen to McAuliffe's idea on the issue. #3: McAuliffe tries to make himself appear charming by his total ignorance of pop culture (variations of stuff like, "So, nice to meet you, Paul Simon. Oh, you're a singer. Are you the Senator's son?" over and over again) but in fact he comes across as annoyingly clueless.

However, the most important thing is that he never discusses any failures of the party during his tenure except to blame it on the mistakes of Kerry, campaign consultants, or anyone else. What I really wanted to read about was his perspective on the 2002 midterm elections. He was the presiding chair of the DNC that year, and those elections reflected a collapse of the Democrats' tactics while they were being outplayed by the Republicans who were effectively turning attention away from Afghanistan and to Iraq for their electoral advantage. McAuliffe starts talking about the Democrats' perspective on supporting authorizing (not requiring) the president to use force in Iraq back in early fall of '02. And then the section on that era ends. The whole 2002 midterms are skipped. His role in them is ignored, except a throwaway line later on in the book about how that the strategy for the midterms was mostly the responsibility of the DSCC and DCCC. Similar to his "every time the Democrats screwed up, it was because they didn't listen to me," theme in his book, this time when the Democrats screwed up, he just skipped over the entire thing, not offering any insight into his role or his perspective. I suppose that's a problem with an autobiography. No one wants to write about the times one screwed up by oneself.

Posted by Dean at 11:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 18, 2007

I Have to Agree with this one

So while I was driving to NJ up from DC, I tuned in to WXPN, which is 88.5 broadcasting out of Philadelphia. Who was guest DJing in a prerecorded segment? It was Weird Al Yankovic. Actually, he has good taste in music. In addition, he featured one of his new songs "No Cigar," which is a parody homage to the band Cake. Here's an excerpt:

Jillian was her name
She was sweeter than aspartame
Her kisses reconfigured my DNA
And after that I never was the same

And I loved her even more
Than Marlon Brando loved souffle
She was gorgeous, she was charming
Yeah, she was perfect in every way

Except she was always using the word "infer"
When she obviously meant "imply"
And I know some guys would put up with that kind of thing
But frankly, I can't imagine why

I know that this is supposed to be a parody, but truthfully, if I were dating a woman who always used "infer" when she meant "imply," this would really, really bother me. I might even consider that a show-stopper. Even though I'm a big grammar taskmaster, I would be willing to let it slide if someone kept saying "between you and I" or asked "by who?" Not knowing the difference between infer and imply would grate on me way too much.

Posted by Dean at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2007

DC Yet Again Makes Itself Look Silly

Via Wonkette, we find a story from The Hill about how changing electoral fortunes are helping Democrats get more dates:

Romantic opportunities have increased for Democrats. For one thing, there are now more of them around Capitol Hill — all the better for socializing. And some aides and political experts have noticed that Democrats have begun to dress the part and are looking better.
Ok, fair enough. But then as I read a little further down, I get to this part:
[David] Corn, a well-known liberal, also noted the sartorial differences between Republican and Democratic women. “Republican dresser — more Ann Taylor-ish. A Democratic dresser — a little more eclectic, a touch more of Banana Republic.”
Ok, now wait a sec. Republicans dressing in Ann Taylor, I can understand. It's pretty much the gold standard in "dressing nice without actually wearing anything remotely interesting" (previously derided, I might add, by Wonkette editor emerita Ana Marie Cox as comparable to "standard-issue gunnysacks"). But to declare Banana Republic to be more eclectic, with the implication that Democrats are more stylish for it? I would say that I'm stunned at what lame, boring taste people have here in DC, but the truth is that I'm not stunned at all. Note to DC'ers, Democrats and otherwise: you are not particularly stylish or snappy by wearing Banana Republic clothes. That is what office-park drones in the exurbs wear on business casual Fridays. I'm a scruffy scientist and even I know this.

Now I think I will gloat for a moment. One reason that political staffers' dating fortunes can rise and fall with the political fortunes of their respective parties is because introducing yourself as a congressional staffer in the DC social scene doesn't win you very many points. Every young person here works in politics. Now, on the other hand, if you tell people you're a scientist, suddenly you're a bit more interesting of a social commodity. :)

Posted by Dean at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2007

Wheee! More post office price increases!

Starting tomorrow, the price of a first class stamp goes up to 41 cents. You know what's annoying? The fact that I'm not even finished with my roll of 37 cent stamps that I've been trying to use up since the last price increase.

Posted by Dean at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 12, 2007

Headlines Amuse Me

When I was in high school, I was responsible for writing headlines for one of the student publications. Interestingly, that was my mom's job when she was editor in chief of the paper in her high school. So I'm always on the lookout for good headlines. This headline on a story about tightrope walkers crossing Korea's Han river on their own is classic....

(after the jump)

Continue reading "Headlines Amuse Me"

Posted by Dean at 12:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 8, 2007

I get called for jury duty!

So, last month I got a note in the mail letting me know that I had to show up to court to serve for jury duty. Now, thankfully, the Washington, DC jury duty system works the same way as that of Massachusetts. You show up for one day, or the length of a trial you get picked for. That meant that this morning, I took the day off work (federal employees get paid full salary while on jury duty), and hopped on the metro to Judiciary Square to go to the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse:

DSC00012

This is actually one of the closest brushes I've had with jury duty in several years. I got called for a criminal trial involving a defendant accused of assaulting two corrections officers at the DC jail. I was briefly interviewed by the judge, and then allowed to leave after the lawyers interviewed the other potential juries and made their final decisions. Pretty harmless, but I had to stay all day. Plus, it gave me a chance to catch up on my reading.

Posted by Dean at 8:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 7, 2007

Serious sins in Washington

From CQ Weekly, we have this weird story, featuring Tad Furtado (Tad? Note to Republican parents and politicians: stop feeding into stereotypes when you name your kids and hire staffers. When was the last time a Democratic politician had a staffer named "Moonbeam"? They know better on that side of the aisle.), longtime aide and former campaign staffer of New Hampshire's defeated Republican House member Charles Bass:

In court papers filed last month, Furtado’s girlfriend of 10 months, Renee Howell — the chief of staff to Republican Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana — alleges that Furtado snuck into her apartment in April and trashed the place.

Howell alleges that Furtado slashed every piece of furniture in her home with a knife. He did the same thing to her lingerie, her complaint contends — and then proceeded to douse her underwear drawer with Tabasco sauce. Howell also says Furtado poured bleach over many of her clothes, threw eggs, olives, beer and yogurt in her washer and dryer, and threw some of their vacation photos from Paris in her toilet.

Ick. Creepy. Yeah, it all sounds bad. But let's face it, reading the article, I think we know exactly what it was that pushed Howell over the edge and drove her to seek redress through the courts... Furtado attempted to commit a crime even more serious than anything described above:

The filing says Furtado had previously entered her home unannounced and once tried to steal her BlackBerry from her office after they broke up.

In Washington, DC, you do not mess with someone's Blackberry! They're serious about that stuff around here.

(via kos. bonus points to citizenx for noticing the Blackberry angle on all this.)

Posted by Dean at 8:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well that was a fun weekend...

Friday afternoon...

Some hanging out...

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Some gathering of friends...

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Getting the BBQ started...

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A little live athletic competition...

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Friday night...

Some live music...

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a few drinks...

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Saturday afternoon...

Enjoying some lunch with friends...

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A little dancing...

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Saturday night...

Listen to some more music...

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Some more hanging out with friends...

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Sunday morning...

Breakfast of champions....

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Posted by Dean at 7:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 1, 2007

Proof that there is no punishment for failure in politics

Fred Clark beat me to the topic of this post by wishing everyone a Happy Andrew Natsios Day last week, but this has been something I've wanted to comment on for a bit, so I'll have a go at it myself.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a wedding of a couple of college friends in Salem, Massachusetts, and after the reception ended, a bunch of us headed over to a local branch of the Boston Beerworks down the street for some drinks and snacks. On the menu was something called the "Big Dig Brownie" which claimed to offer "$14 billion worth of taste." I pointed out that it would be more accurate if the Big Dig Brownie was listed on the menu for $2.50, but when you got the bill, you would get charged more than $14.

Now, a lot of people were responsible for the costs of the Big Dig having spiraled out of control from it's original estimate of $2.8 billion, but one of the more infamous characters in all of this was Andrew Natsios, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority during the Cellucci administration. It turned out that during his tenure, he covered up evidence of cost overruns, which had already been spiraling upwards as it was, in order to ensure that federal money wouldn't be cut off and to avoid more federal oversight from the Clinton administration, not to mention the fact that he wanted to avoid the fate of his predecessor, Jim Kerasiotes, who was also fired when cost overruns became apparent.

Things being as they are, it turns out it's awfully difficult to cover up cost overruns on the billions-of-dollars scale, and sure enough, Natsios was outed and promptly fired in 2001. I promptly forgot about him until one evening in the summer of 2003, I was watching a re-run of Nightline originally broadcast in April 2003 on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, and who was the guest, but Andrew Natsios explaining that Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction through oil revenues. By the mid-summer, when I was watching this, it was clear that the guy was going to be totally wrong. Not too much later in September, 2003, the president would plead for an extra $87 billion to continue the war in Iraq (by the way, Happy Mission Accomplished Day, everyone!), and sure enough, no one is claiming that the war is something that hardly cost us a thing.

"Why, the mileage on this car is so great, the scheduled maintenance will pay for itself!"

Whose idea was it to pick Andrew Natsios, a guy tainted by scandal by covering up cost overruns in the largest public works project in the world, to be the public spokesman for predicting costs of the Iraq war? Surely some people must have been sitting around a table discussing who would be good, and someone said, "let's find someone with experience. This guy Natsios had a job like that before. How about him?" Somehow no one objected by saying, "that guy was fired because he screwed up the very job you want to hire him for!"

Surely, you're thinking, this guy had to have been banished to ignominy after being so blatantly wrong (if not outright misleading) about the most expensive military operation in 30 years, no? Or even if he was given a patronage job, they made him something like assistant ambassador to Denmark or something, right? Funny you should ask, since the answer is, in fact, "no" to both questions. Last September, the guy was appointed Special Envoy to Sudan.

One is reminded of an eerie parallel of a certain April Glaspie, US ambassador to Iraq in 1990 who told Saddam Hussein as tensions rose between Iraq and Kuwait that "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. ... the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" on the eve of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Yeah, not one of the slicker diplomatic moves in history if you're trying to stop a potential middle eastern conflagration. No one heard of her again until 1993 or so when she turned up in a diplomatic post in Somalia, where the U.S. suddenly found itself bogged down in a military conflict trying to hunt down warlords. It can't possibly be coincidental that wherever these people get assigned to, things start to go wrong in a big way soon afterwards.

Posted by Dean at 11:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack