mmmCAT

I just signed up for Kaplan's MCAT course, and I'm starting to feel a little freaked out about it. April's not very far away, and this should prove to be a busy few months. Besides studying, I will likely be shadowing an internal medicine doc, possibly may shadow a cardiology doc, and hopefully may be working in my neuroscience prof's lab. My Iranian Identities professor graciously agreed to write me a letter of recommendation, and hopefully after working with my neuroscience prof, he may too. Oh, and I will be going on a medical missionary trip in January, and I may shadow an ER doc with Sarvesh in Chicago in May. Unfortunately there are more mays than wills in the preceding sentences. I also would like a source of income, but I'm not sure I'll have time for a job (or even contract work). On a related note, I was informed recently that our male cat (the one that isn't fixed) likes to pour cologne all over himself. I have just witnessed the evidence of this for myself. When picturing this in my mind, I imagined the cat must have been confused upon being doused in a strange, pungent liquid; perhaps he was expecting a cool, refreshing drink. Now seeing smelling him lying there self-satisfied and languid, I am forced to reconsider his motives. I imagine he fancies himself quite the ladies' man, especially in a house with two females and only one other sulky, gelded male. He's shown here being treated like a king by the female he recently impregnated:

Merry Effin' Christmas!

Gmail Filter tip

For the uninitiated, Filters in Gmail are useful for all sorts of things, not least of which is sorting your email as it enters your inbox. So anyway, I was setting up some of these filters to label (colored labels are pretty cool) my credit card emails, and I figured it was a little inefficient adding a separate filter for each company. After testing it a bit and realizing that "or" and commas between addresses in the "from" field weren't doing the trick, I went with the javascript way, since gmail is written mostly in that. It worked, and if you're interested in doing the same, here's an example of what you'd put in the from field to filter for multiple addresses:

*@*chase.com || *@*citibank.com || *@*discovercard.com

Similarly, you could also type the following into the search field to find from multiple addresses:

from:(*@*chase.com || *@*citibank.com || *@*discovercard.com)

Patients' Voices in Early 19th Century Virginia

A fascinating collection:

Gentlemen,

Soon after Dr. Brown left us we ap
-plied the blister which drew remarkably well
But I am sorry to inform you that our little
boy is worse. He appeared to grow worse last night
before supper. His fever rose, he breathed hard, and
complained of pain in his belly, or breast - He has
so continued ever since and I am now much
alarmed at his situation - You will please send
by the bearer such Medicine as you think necessary
you will oblige

yr. ob.t hum: Ser.t

Lau: Battaile

Two Victories

Two victories today - one over intelligent design, and another over my pre-med curriculum. I heard about the upcoming decision this morning on my way to campus, and I almost wanted to stay in my car and listen to NPR until I heard it, but I knew a couple more hours of studying would probably serve me better. I already was anticipating the oncoming aural assault of conservative talk radio - "Razzle frazzle! Activist judges! Grizzle bizzle!" - which is why this paragraph is so sweet:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

Haha, awesome.

Oh. My. God.

I don't know how these people haven't killed themselves doing this. It's seriously insane and amazing. You have to watch it.

--> video.google.com/videop...

(This post was discovered and made using the ever-so-useful Blogger Web Comments Firefox Extension .)

New Gmail Feature

New Gmail Feature:

View your favorite RSS feeds right in Gmail as “Clips” along the top of your Gmail screen. Display clips from blogs, news sites and other online sources. Pick from the latest headlines, random popular feeds, or add any RSS/Atom feed you want.

You might have noticed this if you use Gmail. It's pretty nifty. But I just noticed a clever little thing the Google guys did - the clips change to Spam recipes when you're viewing your spam folder. Just thought that was funny. OK, I'm going to bed now. Lots of neuroscience to do tomorrow. Mmm mmm, savory Spam crescents!

Finals

I'll likely be missing over the next few days, due to massive amounts of studying. Which is what I'm off to do right now. See ya.

Richard Pryor

Pioneering Comedian Richard Pryor Dies:

LOS ANGELES - Richard Pryor, the groundbreaking comedian whose profanely personal insights into race relations and modern life made him one of Hollywood's biggest stars, died of a heart attack Saturday. He was 65.

Much too soon. I remember not being allowed to watch his act when I was a little boy, but I still managed to see The Toy (although I didn't get the "Master Bates" joke until much later), and he was awesome in Superman III. Mr. Pryor (imdb bio) also lived with multiple sclerosis for much of his life. MS is an autoimmune disease in which the myelin that coats neurons in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) is destroyed, causing problems with the conduction of electrical signals. Symptoms run the gamut from loss of muscle function to clinical depression. There's no cure yet, only treatments that can slow the advancement of the disease. Here's a good place to send donations and get more information.

Oh, that Calvin

Courtesy of Mason at FueledByAlcohol.com: See the rest over here.

On being a Google whore

I now use Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, and Google Reader. I'd say I'm fairly happy with the results. Here's a quick run-down of the pros and cons that I've discovered so far.

• Gmail: The best choice of a technology product I've made in ages. When combined with the Firefox extension Gmail Manager, I get up-to-the-minute notification of new email. I've got all of my mail forwarding to my gmail account, and since gmail allows sending from multiple addresses, the whole thing is pretty seamless. Now I can check and send all of my email from one place, from any computer with an internet connection. Oh, and there's also a really nifty Greasemonkey script that makes all 'mailto' links open a gmail composition window. If you're not using Firefox, you really should be.
• Blogger: Well, you're looking at it. It's pretty decent blogging software, and though there are a few glitches here and there, I really have nothing major to complain about so far. I like the malleability of the template, and the BlogThis! bookmarklet is pretty convenient, as it allows me to select text on a website and publish it to my blog with a couple of clicks. Another benefit is that it is a widely supported format, so that for example, I can install the del.icio.us Firefox extension which allows me to post links to this blog in a couple of clicks - way more convenient than copying and pasting links, with the added benefit of having everything conveniently tagged. Did I mention you should really be using Firefox?
• Picasa: Disappointing functionality, but fantastic interface. For one thing, it should have integrated uploading ability to your photo-sharing website of choice (it does have a convenient BlogThis button, but I discussed previously what makes this mildly undesirable). For another, its labeling system is so far completely incompatible with the tagging systems found on sites like Zoto and Flickr. I want to upload photos from my camera, tag them for organization on my desktop and website, and then upload them to my website, all in a couple of steps. I'm not aware of any one piece of software that does this yet.
• Google Reader: The partial answer to my prayers. I wanted a replacement for Thunderbird that could read and remember my RSS feeds, no matter where I logged in, and I wanted a snazzy AJAXy interface. Google must have read my mind. It's still a young product, so I won't complain too much about the little things. I would like some sort options, or perhaps an interface that shows the list of all feeds with a "(unread number)" to the side. Also, for some reason Pharyngula's feed keeps reposting several duplicates, and they haven't implemented any way to read secure feeds yet, nor have they integrated the Reader into the Personalized Home Page. These idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, it's a terrific news reader.

One thing I'd like to see Google get in on? The online photo-sharing business. Do like Yahoo! and snag yourself a Flickr, Google (preferably Zoto, so I don't have to migrate). Then integrate everything and send me a t-shirt and baseball cap.

Something of my own

School stresses me out. I watch TV to alleviate stress. Time is eaten away. All of these things sap my creativity. Sometimes I have to sit down and force myself to think and write. It's been a while, and this was written as abruptly as it was aborted, so it's probably terrible. Apologies in advance. i went fishing today and that big lake was cold. i cast my line so far couldn't see where it hit. felt tension on the line - like every other time - except this time it was just the weight of distance. and suddenly the reel was tethered to my chest. and as i was dragged down, the bitterness washed off. exquisite, enduring pressure grew but was numbed by the frigid depths i shared with broken driftwood. and somewhere my target, elusive and luring, danced among the shipwrecks a million miles away.

Forugh Farrokhzad, 1935-1967

"I will greet the sun again; I will greet the streams that flowed in me, the clouds that floated as my thoughts, the poplars trees that grew in my arid years, the flocks of crows which brought me as a gift the earthy scents of midnight fields; I will greet again my mother (who lived in the mirror and was the image of my old age); I will greet again the earth whose fertile womb contains the seeds of passion to return me to life. I will come, I will return I will come again and this time my hair will smell of the soil; and my eyes will be filled with the knowledge of the darkness; I will come again carrying the branches I have gathered in the woodlands behind the wall. I will come, I will return, I will come again, and the entrance will be filled once more with love; as I will greet all those who are in bloom and the child who stands in the doorway lit up by all that love. " -Forugh Farrokhzad [warning: flash intro with sound] (Translation courtesy of http://antolak.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/9/23/1251431.html)

CNN.com - Some megachurches closing on Christmas

CNN.com - Some megachurches closing on Christmas:

Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.

So I guess seculars don't really need to wage a war on Christmas; with fundies demanding the commercialization of the holy day and apparently not too concerned with even worshipping on that day, they're doing a pretty good job of it themselves.

The US backed the invasion of East Timor | MetaFilter

The US backed the invasion of East Timor | MetaFilter:

Newly declassified US documents show that the US government knew well in advance about the invasion plans of Indonesia into East Timor. Once in East Timor, Indonesian forces committed a mass genocide of the local population - anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 people, which was only 600,000 to begin with according to Wikipedia. As the first link shows, The US government actively suppressed news stories from getting out about the genocide. This isn't exactly news to Those who followed the invasion, But most people are unaware of the US government's support, perhaps the number of Newspapers covering the story according to GoogleNews can go some way to explain why many are unaware of this fact.

DB’s Medical Rants - On doctoring

DB should be directing the AAMC:

First, we should change the premed curriculum. For too long we have emphasized courses which do not have great relevance to being a physician. The reliance on organic chemistry is absolutely idiotic.

That's what I was thinking the entire time I was learning it, but I thought I was just lacking some sort of hindsight or wisdom or something. Turns out, I could have been right. He continues:

Second, we should change our admission criteria. Many schools do consider students who have a broader background. I love having students who majored in English, or Philosophy.

I almost wish I had been a lit or philosophy major instead of business. I always had a great inclination towards the liberal arts, but chose business for practical reasons ("liberal arts majors don't get jobs"). Now that I'm back taking my premeds, I wonder if a more enriching intellectual experience would have served me better than the more, um... visceral exercise that was business school. It was a unique and valuable experience in itself, but probably not one I would have chosen if I had known the competing value of liberal arts.

Perk up that memory with some caffeine

Perk up that memory with some caffeine: "It seems brain scans confirm what coffee drinkers already know - that caffeine gives the brain a boost. Austrian researchers say the scans show that caffeine found in coffee, tea, soft drinks and chocolate stimulates areas of the brain governing short-term memory and attention. Apparently functional magnetic resonance imaging scans performed on the brains of 15 subjects who had just consumed caffeine equal to that found in two cups of coffee, showed increased activity in the frontal lobe where the working memory is located, and in the anterior cingulum that controls attention." I think I'm going to up my caffeine intake.

Mmm... sacrelicious

I mostly wanted to test out Picasa (which seems pretty awesome so far), but this is also a funny picture that I thought should be shared. Edit: Hmm, I don't really care for the little Picasa logo it tacks on the end when I use the BlogThis function from inside the software. I also think I'd rather have the photo linking to my zoto page. But Picasa still seems pretty handy for sorting the photos on my computer, and it has a really nice interface. I was having trouble finding some pictures (which are currently only sorted by date) last night, so with a little labelling, this should do the trick.

Cosmetic Surgery

I made a few changes to the appearance around here. I'd love to hear what you think, or if something's wonky in your browser.