« January 2008 | Main | March 2008 »

February 14, 2008

grad school, lesson #191

When in doubt, speak to your committee.

They are very helpful people who are full of ideas, and they want you to do well.

Posted by Derksen at 5:14 PM | | Comments (0)

February 13, 2008

a good day for mail

Well.

Hunh.

I guess it turns out that I am not totally incompetent after all, and that my thesis research has the potential to be interesting to somebody outside of the academic community. It seems that I have recently been awarded the "Dennis Carpenter Memorial Fellowship", sponsored by the Dade County AgriCouncil.

This is kind of odd, and kind of flattering.

I've never really received money for writing up an idea before.

It kind of feels good.

Posted by Derksen at 4:02 PM | | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

darwin day again

Well, happy Darwin Day all over again. Had the man survived like his work has, he would now be a year shy of two hundred years old, and all the stronger for it. Next year, his Origin of the Species will be one hundred and fifty years old - and while it has undergone considerable refinement as additional data has been collected, the central tenets of his observations about the processes affecting populations over time still remain the same:

  1. Individuals within populations must possess variable traits. For whatever reason, not all critters are identical. Some of us are slightly taller than others, or shorter, or hairier, or a slightly different shade of mauve.
  2. These variations must result in differential performance. Maybe being shorter helps you hide in your burrow and helps you avoid being eaten by hairier folks, or by being slightly more mauve you are slightly more attractive. Performance is often measured in terms of reproductive output, because the ability to reproduce yourself and to continue or expand your lineage into the future is the only real measure of "success" for a population.
  3. These variations must be heritable. It doesn't matter to the population's success over the long term if your individual success cannot be shared with the generations of offspring ahead of you. They must be able to inherit your performance.

And that really is evolution by natural selection in a nutshell. The devil, as always is in the details, and there has been considerable debate about the mechanisms of heredity, or how fast these processes occur - but these central three points have never been overturned. It is hard for me to imagine why these simple and basic principles are considered controversial. They do not imply a moral order to the universe, merely an observation of ongoing processes.

Posted by Derksen at 2:12 PM | | Comments (0)

February 10, 2008

a few things

So... I remembered a few things about myself this weekend. I have been housesitting for one of the folks related to the research station, and it reminded me of what I liked about living and working around a real home.

The first is that I really like stereo sound, and I have missed it terribly. I plugged my host's speakers to my laptop, and the improvement in my movie-watching capability was dramatic. Headphones are okay, but nothing beats the freedom a pair of cheap speakers and a small subwoofer can provide. I can only imagine how much better my surround sound system will appear to me when I finally return to civilization and a television that provides more than monaural output.

The second thing I have rediscovered is that I focus better with less white noise. I am okay with music blazing clear, or random nature rustling in the background, but the steady whine of machinery like the incubator beside my desk can be incredibly distracting. It gets inside my head and it grinds against my brain - and it drives me crazy. It makes me want to plug my ears up and go to sleep.

So I just need to find good clear sound for my brain to function right.

Muses, are you listening?

Posted by Derksen at 8:29 PM | | Comments (0)

February 6, 2008

improvisational car repairs

With a twist tie, which is a marked improvement over the duct-tape that was once holding it together. Surprisingly, I am not responsible for the duct-tape, but methinks that I will never use the dealer for an oil change ever again. Of all the people in the world whom you would believe would have the proper screws to put things back together right, you would think the dealer would be the first.

Posted by Derksen at 4:16 PM | | Comments (0)

kicking ass for science

Ah, Henry Rollins, a man of many talents. Former Black Flag frontman, sometime actor, motivational speaker, and apparently activist in favor of reality based education:

Posted by Derksen at 9:57 AM | | Comments (0)

February 4, 2008

family adventures

Being a Derksen means never having to say that you are lost - you're just on another adventure.

Posted by Derksen at 9:09 AM | | Comments (0)