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Typealyzer

So, I know mostly nothing about this site, Typealyzer, or how it works, but the idea is that you input the web address of the blog you want to analyze and it’ll tell you about the blogger’s personality. So, if you do mine:

ISTP – The Mechanics

“The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

“The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.”

Then, it shows that I’ve got left-brain dominance, including Practicality, Thinking (logic, mathematics), and Sensing (order, habit, details).

Sounds accurate to me!! 🙂

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Neuroscience 2008

From Neuroscience 2008

Well, I got back from DC today…was there for a few days for the Society for Neuroscience 2008 convention (last year’s was in San Diego), where I presented a poster of some data I’ve been working on (and hope to get published soon!). Overall, the poster presentation (which was Sunday morning) went beautifully well. Last year, I presented later in the conference, so there were less people around to listen to me make stuff up… This year, however, was earlier so there was much more interest and, in general, many more people.

Other than that, I looked at lots of other posters and talked with some folks from different labs, checking into some Postdoc opportunities. I got some good information, and some good ideas as to where to go next (with my research and my career).

We did get some sight-seeing in, though, specifically getting to see the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (w00t!) and the National Mall (and all their monuments…). They’re all pretty self-explanatory, and you can check out pictures here!

Oh, and I also got to see Jeff Lin. Good times.

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A step too far?

So, I heard this mentioned a few weeks ago on a video game blog I listen to: if you don’t like the message of the songs presented in the popular Guitar Hero or Rock Band franchises, you’re in luck, ’cause now there’s Guitar Praise!! You can how have “inspirational fun” with 52 songs from Christian bands like Skillet, Petra and Casting Crowns!

But that’s not all! Remember the seemingly unstoppable”High School Musical” franchise? Well, maybe some of the themes in those movies are questionable…but you’re in luck there too, ’cause now there’s “Sunday School Musical!” An “inspirational story” about a group of kids that enter a music competition to save their church from closing! Watch the trailer – it’s gripping…

So yeah, perhaps I’m wrong (and I usually am…), but isn’t this a step too far? I understand that the “High School Musical” franchise is primarily watched by middle school-aged kids (as opposed to actual high school kids), perhaps exposing them to some themes that aren’t exactly age appropriate…but shouldn’t it be the parent’s responsibility to limit that exposure? Or the fact that music from Guitar Hero or Rock Band are on the radio/TV all the time….wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to your kids about the themes in popular music rather than simply ignoring them and avoiding them? Isn’t it better to teach kids how to handle a variety of media that they may be exposed to on a daily basis…rather than trying to keep it from them only to have them see it on their own at a friend’s house, not knowing how to treat it?

It seems to me that, while I don’t have any kids (besides a very lazy beagle), I’d want to help my children integrate into the world around them efficiently and effectively, rather than shelter them to the point where they may not know how to deal with what’s really out there until they leave home and go to college.

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My civil duty

So, I got a notice in the mail a little over a month ago from the city…apparently, I’d been selected for jury duty…… The plan was for me to appear at the civil courts building downtown on Nov. 3rd at 8:00 am and wait to see if I get selected.

Quite honestly, it was a fascinating experience. I got there a bit late (a comedy of errors going on there, forgetting my summons after parking, having to get cash from the ATM to pay for parking, but the ATM not having any cash to give out, etc…), but generally you hang around in this large room with, literally, 500 other people (there were two rooms like this available), until you get selected. There was a lunch break, but otherwise, you sit in a room and wait. Thankfully, I took my DS along and played some Phoenix Wright to pass the time…

Every 30 – 45 minutes or so, the voice over the loudspeaker would read off juror numbers and have you all come downstairs to a separate seating area where they could look at the group (making sure they got a good sampling of young/old, black/white/hispanic, etc.), and then they’d send you off to your designated room.

I got called around 3:15, so I was one of the last groups to get to go. Around 40 of us were taken across the street to another building where we had to answer a variety of questions from the two lawyers, whittling us down to a group of 14 (12 of which would decide a verdict, and the other 2 would be alternates). Of course, I was kept on and had to return the next day (Election Day) to serve on the jury.

After voting at 6:15 am, I went to the court around 9:45 to serve. I won’t go into the details of the case here, but essentially, it was a case involving a car accident and who was at fault. We ended up deciding in favor of the person bringing the suit, mostly because their lawyer was much more effective in his arguments and the defense was…well…not so effective…

The most interesting part for me was the “awarding of damages” portion… I personally tend to err on the side of not awarding “pain and suffering,” but the other jurors felt it was appropriate and, in the end, they were probably right. I guess it’s just hard to come up with a monetary value to decide what something so abstract as “pain” or “suffering” is worth. Especially considering that I haven’t ever been in an injurious accident where I felt I was owed something for all I had just been through. Figuring in the length of the court case, the car repairs, the lost work due to physical therapy, and the costs to the lawyers hired, we felt that going above and beyond the monetary value of the medical treatment alone was just and right.

Anyway, I’ve served on a jury now. And as the judge pointed out, it isn’t very often that one gets to perform two civil duties in a single day: serve on a jury, and voting. Both of which are things that many people around the world aren’t allowed to do.

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Here’s my guess…

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!!! (I’m only putting Missouri as “blue” because I want them to hold their bellwether status…)

Update (11/6/08): While it looks like MO will go for McCain (grrrr…) and NC will go for Obama (yay!), that means it’ll end up something like 364 – 174…which means…I was damned close… 😛

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And you thought golf was boring…

So, Brooke and I inherited two free tix to the Rams game today. It was the first time either of us had ever been to an NFL game, so we were all about “the experience,” especially as we’ve both lived close to NFL teams for years and had never actually gone to one. Kickoff was at noon, and as we were getting out of church just before then, we were a bit late to the game. Either way, we hung out through the end of the third quarter. At the time, it was 7 – 30…so…not so good…

It ended 13-34.

Now, I’ve been to high school and college football games…but neither are as boring as an NFL game, apparently. Seriously, I think I missed the commercials during all the timeouts! The thing that really has me confused is how people can think baseball is boring when there’s so much downtime in an NFL game. I’m pretty sure, at least for the nearly 3 quarters we were there, the ball was not moving longer than it was moving. At least in baseball, there are short pauses throughout, but there is a game to watch for the vast majority of the time!

Anyway, we’re glad we went to the game…and didn’t pay anything for it… Which brings up another point: we were up at the top of the Dome and those seats would have cost $44. $44?!? That’s two tickets for a Cardinal’s game that is a). more entertaining, and b). better seats!

We’ll probably still try and hit up a Blues hockey game, as neither of us have ever been to an NHL game, either…but we may put that off until we get to a few more baseball games to wash away the sour taste in our mouths…

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Palin vs Obama

I honestly wasn’t impressed with the “Mercenaries 2,” but with downloadable content like this, I may have to change my mind. Running around as Palin or Obama with a rocket launcher? Classic!

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A.L.F. uses a Hulu hoop…

Digital distribution of TV shows is quickly becoming the new way of getting content to the consumer, making it less necessary to even have cable or a DVR… ABC and CBS have their own services, but NBC went with what they call Hulu…no idea what it means…

I had never tried this service before, but after the most recent PS3 patch that came through, now it is capable of using Flash 9, which is the most recent version what is required by many streaming video sites (YouTube included…) to function. Because of this, I can how access Hulu through the PS3 and stream video content to my TV without the need to plug in my laptop…which…is kinda awesome, really…

So, to test this out, I looked through the somewhat extensive catalog of shows to watch. Each one contains a few commercials, with maybe two 30 sec commercials and one 15 sec commercial interspersed at the appropriate places…far better than the minutes upon minutes of commercials you’d see on broadcast televisions, but still not as good as skipping through them with your DVR. You really ought to browse through there, because it isn’t just NBC shows, but nearly anything produced by Universal…so Fringe is on there, too…as well as movies…all for free…

Anyway, long story short(er), I found A.L.F…and Hulu has three (of four) seasons of it. I watched the first episode today and, damn, that acting was terrible… 🙂 Seriously, A.L.F. and Willy were the only decent actors on that show (with the possible exception of Liz Sheridan as Mrs. Ochmonek…and Lucky the Cat, of course…). They should have cut everyone else out of it.

So yeah, if there’s nothing on TV you want to watch, check out Hulu. (Note: this isn’t anything new…Hulu’s been around for at least a year…I just finally discovered it…)