TiYBoM Introduction.

From "I Love Music and I Love Science-- Why Would I Want to Mix the Two?" (the Introduction) of This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin:

The Oxford historian Martin Kemp points out a similarity between artists and scientists.  Most artists describe their work as experiments"n concern or to establish a viewpoint.  My good friend and colleague William Forde Thompson (a music cognition scientist and composer at the University of Toronto) adds that the work of both scientists and  artists involves similar stages of development: a creative and exploratory "brainstorming" stage, followed by testing and refining stages that typically involve the application of set procedures, but are often informed by additional creative problem-solving.  Artists' studios and scientists' laboratories share similarities as well, with a large number of projects going at once, in various stages of completion.... What artists and scientists have in common in the ability to live in an open-ended state of interpretation and reinterpretation of the products of our work.  The work of artists and scientists is ultimately the pursuit of truth, but members of both camps understand that truth in its very nature is contextual and changeable, dependent on point of view, and that today's truths become tomorrow's disproven hypotheses or forgotten objets d'art.... For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people, even as contexts, societies, and cultures change.  For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"-- to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.

... I just figured out how it actually might be possible for the biochemist and the scenic designer to live happily ever after.  More importantly, this explains Ross and Rachel.

Have You Hugged Your Muffins Today?

I made the most amazing cornbread muffins tonight for the Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow.  Well, I think they're amazing.  You should make some and tell me what you think.  They're slightly spicy, but not really.  Everyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a spice wimp.  The chile powder in these just gives the muffins a little extra flavor.  Also, salt is optional.  I put salt in because I like salty cornbread.  People who like cornbread on the sweeter side can just leave the salt out.  This recipe makes about a dozen small muffins.  Enjoy!


Lightly Spicy Super Tasty Cornbread Muffins

2  8.5oz boxes corn muffin mix, I used the old school (super cheap) Jiffy mix
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1  8.5oz can creamed corn
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 tsp Ancho chile powder
1/4 tsp Cayenne chile powder
1/4 tsp Schilling (generic) chile powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix together all of the ingredients. Fill muffin cups (in muffin tin) about 3/4 full.  Bake in the center of the oven until just golden and muffin springs back when gently pressed, about 15-20 minutes.  Let cool about 10 minutes.  Ta-da!

Well I Feel A Lot Safer Now

(Okay, first news post with Maggie.)

THE STORY:

WalesOnline
New Haven Register

THE INTERPREATION:



Are you fucking serious?  How in the world do you not notice a DEAD PERSON in the front seat?!  Granted, I'm more sensitive to noticing dead people since I'm constantly aware of any potential zombie threat... but seriously?   

Now, taking into consideration the fact that parking enforcement personnel have no souls and therefore would never consider waking up a sleeping driver to ask them to move their vehicle before ticketing them, I might be willing to accept that the University's parking attendants didn't do anything the first time they ticketed her SUV.  But to ignore a "sleeping" driver two more times when there were already tickets on the windshield?  How low can you get?

Or maybe they never even saw the dead person in the driver's seat... which, if true, is even more terrifying.

Even if the driver's side window is tinted so that you can't glance in and see the driver slumped in the front seat, I did my research and found that according to New Mexico code 66-3-846.1, section B1, when tinting is used on the windshield, it "...shall be used only along the top of the windshield, not extending downward beyond the ASI line or more than five inches from the top of the windshield, whichever is closer to the top of the windshield..."  So clearly, we know that the parking attendants were capable of seeing into the vehicle and noticing the dead chick in the front seat.   They just chose not to.  And yes, at that point, it's a choice.  When you're walking around the world "just doing your job" (or whatever excuse you want to use), and don't look through the windshield you're placing a parking ticket on to notice a dead woman in the front seat, you're choosing not to see her.  It might not be a malicious choice, but at some point in the parking attendants' lives, they did make the choice to stop looking.

So what's next for the University of New Mexico?  Campus security patrols ticketing a housing unit for excessive noise at a party and "not noticing" the rohypnol lab set up on the coffee table in the front room?



When it comes down to it, the real story here is either:

1.  It's all about the money.  On the off-chance that it actually was just a really stupid freshman leaving his car in a red zone for a week, University personnel would rather continue to cite a vehicle for repeated parking violations and milk their cashcow for all its worth than contact local officials about a seemingly abandoned vehicle.  Because Lord knows the ticket money means more than the school's reputation for safety.

Or

2.  We really are that dumb.  We see what we're supposed to see.  We're so focused on the tasks immediately in front of us we only see the piece of paper and don't look through the glass to what lies beyond.  Call it distracted if that word sounds nicer to you, but I think it's just plain dumb that in a world where a day's value is measured solely by our output and we're so obsessed with just getting through our jam-packed to do lists, no one has time to stop and smell the dead people.


Either way it's just further proof that when the apocalypse happens, we'll be better off.  When the dead people* in the front seats get their vengeance, hopefully all the institutions will crumble and we'll all be forced to take our blinders off or become what my favorite zombie shirt calls 'Post Consumer Human'.


*Yes, people.  Not person, PEOPLE.  While researching this post, I came across numerous other stories (like this one and this one) of dead people being ticketed while still in their cars.

Meet Maggie

After weeks months of saving anything and everything I could, I finally have the netbook I've been dreaming about.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Maggie.
















She's a Samsung N150 Plus.  She's got a 250GB hard drive, 1G memory, 3 USB ports, webcam, and an absolutely beautiful display.  She weighs less than three pounds and her battery life is supposedly up to nine hours.  Given that yesterday I unplugged her at 1:00 in the afternoon (after charging her overnight) and used her continuously until about 8:30 with multiple applications running, I'd definitely believe it.  Oh, and she's a red head.  Sexy little beast, isn't she?

But why the name Maggie, you may be asking.  Well I'll tell you.  The main purpose of this pretty little girl is as a note taking machine for rehearsals.  Which makes her the first investment piece I've made for Blair Legacy Productions, the (yet to be founded) production company that is the ultimate dream I'm always working towards.  And BLP (I keep trying to come up with an 'I' word that I can put in the title to make the company abbreviation BLIP) is named after my great-grandmother, Marguerite Blair.  So if this is the first Blair Legacy keepsake, why not name her after the company's namesake?  Thus, Maggie.

So happy right now.  This computer means my return to internet and a huge boost to my productivity.  And it's always a beautiful feeling to hold in your hand something that you've really worked for.  Yay Maggie!